Texas court imposes gag order in the gang rape
of an 11 year old Mexican-American child
Victim was repeatedly raped through coercion
and threats by at least 19 Afro-Americans
by
Ernesto Cienfuegos
La Voz de Aztlan
Los Angeles, Alta California - March 25, 2011 - (ACN) The disturbing incident, which probably has the Reverend Martin Luther King turning in his grave, took place in the 9,000 population town of Cleveland, Texas that is about 50 miles northeast of Houston. The horrific incident is today threatening to seriously divide the Black and Latino communities in Texas and beyond.
The assaults, according to a police report, began on November 28, 2010 after a 19-year-old with prior crack cocaine convictions persuaded the child to leave her home and go "riding around" with him and two other men. The three men took the 6th grader to a house where one of them lived and ordered the Mexican-American child to disrobe. The police report says that they told the child that if she refused other girls would beat her up and would never get a ride back home.
The abandoned trailer home where most of the sexual assaults took place. It is located in the Black section of town called "The Quarters". The town's demographics is approxmately 58% White, 27% African American and 21% Latino. |
The sexual assaults continued in the abandoned trailer home. The police report stated that as some of the men sexually assaulted the child, others used their cell phones to take photographs and videos. The photographs and videos were soon posted on the Internet where a classmate of the victim saw them and alerted her teacher. The Cleveland police was notified and the investigation began.
The police investigators were able to confiscate the cell phones of some of the rapists and identified, from the photographs and the videos, many of those that participated in the sexual assaults. The police has been making arrests ever since. The suspects range in ages from 14 to 27 years old. To date 19 suspects have been arrested and charged in the gang rape of the 11-year-old Mexican-American child. Police investigators have focused on 28 suspects, all Afro-American, and said that there may be more arrests forthcoming.
Shown are 9 of the 19 suspects arrested so far. Police investigators say that as many as 28 participated in gang rapes of the Mexican-American child and expect to make more arrests. |
Soon after the incident the town's Black community started blaming the 11 year old gang raped victim and her parents. Some said, in a town hall meeting, that the 6th grader "asked for it" and that her mother and father should have been supervising the child more closely. The police, however, have reported that the rapists threaten her with violence if she did not cooperate. The child is an "A" student at her middle school. She has one brother and two older sisters who are in their school's Gifted Student Program. The family has recently experienced economic hard times. The father Juan, a Mexican immigrant carpenter, has been unable to find work and the mothe Maria, a house maid, has been repeatedly hospitalized for a bain tumor.
To make things worse, the Black community leader Quannell X of the Houston based New Black Panther Organization recently came to Cleveland to incite more division between Latinos and Blacks by blaming the 11 year old Mexican-American victim for the gang rape. The Mexican-American organization Mujeres Unidas promptly answered Mr. Quannell X by informing him that any sexual assault upon a girl under the age of 14 is a first degree felony in Texas punishable by up to 99 years in prison. Quannell X has been expelled by the Nation of Islam for dealing drugs in the Sunnyside community located in southern Houston. Perhaps it would be wise if the Reverend Jesse Jackson and/or the Reverend Al Sharpton made attempt to heal the deep wounds inflicted on the Mexican-American community by careless Black leaders and some of the Black residents of Cleveland.
Meanwhile, Texas Liberty County District Judge Mark Morefield has imposed a broad gag order on the case. This has made it very difficult to obtain information about the victim and her family. We do know, however, that the victim has been placed in a foster home in another county for her protection and that her family has been harassed and threaten with violence.