Dallas Police Chief joins activists Recalling 50th Anniversary of Santos Rodriguez's murder by an officer

It was 50 years ago Monday that 12-year-old Santos Rodriguez was murdered by a Dallas Police officer.

Through the years some Dallas leaders wanted to forget the tragedy.

Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia and other city officials joined activists at a Dallas City Hall event Monday working to remember.

On Sunday, the latest of many marches over the Santos Rodriguez murder wound through Uptown Dallas. The neighborhood used to be Little Mexico, where Santos Rodriguez lived 50 years ago.

Mariachis played at City Hall Monday on the actual anniversary day.

Assistant Dallas City Manager Liz Cedillo-Pereira, who led that event, is a daughter of Little Mexico.

“The tragedy is still relevant today,” she said.

Dallas also now has Latino Police Chief Garcia, who apologized to the mother of Santos Rodriguez two years ago on the anniversary of the 1973 murder.

“We’ve come a very long way from that time, but in order to move forward we certainly can’t forget Santos and we can’t forget that story,” Garcia said.

The current Dallas Police Chief said Officer Darrell Cain should never have worn a badge.

Now deceased, Cain was sentenced to 5 years in prison and served only half that for the child’s death.

In his squad car, questioning Rodriquez with a gun to the boy’s head over alleged theft of $8 from a vending machine, which the child did not commit, Cain fired the fatal shot by mistake.  He was playing Russian Roulette and pulled the trigger on his weapon, thinking the gun was not loaded as he pressed Rodriguez to confess.

“It changed me forever,” said Jonathan Maples, now a Dallas Police Oversight Board Member.

Maples said he was 7 years old at the time when his father took him to the very first Rodriguez protest. He said he could not forget the story as others in Dallas did and it helped spark his years of activism.

“I was amazed that no one knew the story of Santos Rodriguez and how he was murdered, just right here in our city,” Maples said.

Dallas League of Latin American Citizens leader Hilda Duarte said the brother of Santos Rodriguez, who was with him in Cain’s squad car 50 years ago, is still suffering from the tragedy.

“He was followed and persecuted because the police department blamed him for speaking up about what happened in the car,” Duarte said.

Garcia said police need to recognize there are reasons why some communities do not trust the police because the badge he is proud to wear today did not always shine so brightly.

“It’s very important that we are here. We are here together and we want to continue to move forward,” Garcia said.

Some of Santos Rodriguez's protest history is included in NBC 5 archives maintained by the University of North Texas.