Eight lives with an American Dream were lost inside a Dodge pickup truck that was loaded with immigrants in Del Rio Texas.
They were killed when it collided with another pickup truck following a police chase near the Texas border city of Del Rio, in Val Verde county.
The crash occurred on U.S. Highway 277 a road I frequently traveled to get to work and return to my rented ranch near the shores of Lake Amistad, while I was building KTRG Television from the banks of The Rio Grande.
The Texas Rangers who patrol that strip of land for Department of Public Safety were reportedly chasing a red Dodge pickup truck. The truck collided head-on with a white Ford F-150 nearly 30 miles north of Del Rio.
The driver and a child passenger of the Ford F-150 are hospitalized, as is one of the passengers from the Dodge pickup, The eight people killed in the Dodge pickup and its surviving passenger were immigrants in the U.S. without authorization.
I mention this not only because the gravity of the accident, but because I was targeted on that same highway by a bully officer who pulled me over and when he read my name, wanted to know what country I was from. I explained that I knew my rights and since he was not an immigration or border patrol agent, I was not legally required to answer the question.
Del Rio is located 152 miles west of San Antonio. and within six miles of its namesake the Rio Grande, Del Rio is connected to Ciudad Acuña by the Lake Amistad Dam International Crossing and Del Río – Ciudad Acuña International Bridge. As of 2010, Del Rio had a population of 35,591.It is also home to Laughlin Air Force Base, the busiest pilot-training base in the United States Air Force.
The small Texas town is best known Del Rio is known for legendary Mexican pirate radio stations XERA and XERF just over the U.S.-Mexico border in Ciudad Acuña; their 250,000-watt signals could be heard at night as far away as Canada. Legendary deejay Wolfman Jack operated XERF in the 1960s, using a Del Rio address to sell various products advertised on the station, including the scam elixir that cured everyone of everything that ailed them.
