The Walls prison break – 50 years later

Fifty years ago last month, inmate Fred Gomez Carrasco and his accomplice Rudolfo Dominguez died in a shootout during a prison break attempt at the Huntsville “Walls” Unit.

Tragically, two prison educators Carrasco was holding hostage were also killed: teacher Yvonne Beseda and librarian Julia Standley. It was a bloody and tragic end to an 11-day siege that captured the nation's attention. Questions about the prison policies that allowed Carrasco to smuggle weapons and ammunition into the Walls Unit and the final shootout were never fully answered. A review of the siege and the events leading up to it is necessary if we are to learn from it and move on.

I was 19 when Carrasco, Dominguez and another inmate named Ignacio Cuevas took over the Walls Unit education building. Carrasco was no stranger to me or others, as he was widely covered in the media. He was a brilliant criminal who built and oversaw what we now call a cartel. He ran a vertically integrated international heroin smuggling operation.

Carrasco was also a convicted murderer, and authorities linked him to dozens of murders in the United States and Mexico.

Many Chicanos in San Antonio followed his exploits in 1973, when he evaded a police manhunt for months. According to David Montejano in his book Quixote's Soldiers: A Local History of the Chicano Movement, 1966-1981Carrasco became a folk hero in some circles. Carrasco was compared to the legendary Gregorio Cortez, who was accused of murdering a Texas sheriff in 1901 and was the target of a mass manhunt in which the Texas Rangers also participated.

Carrasco's arrest at the Southside motel El Tejas in July 1973 was nothing short of cinematic. It seemed to follow the script of a Western film, with Carrasco playing the Mexican outlaw and a white cop named “Big Bill” Weilbacher playing the lawman. Weilbacher's pursuit of Carrasco has become a symbol for some Texans of the historic tensions between Anglo-Saxons and Mexicans. In July, Carrasco was wounded and captured during the final gunfight at the aptly named El Tejas motel. Bill Weilbacher won that round. During the siege, Carrasco denigrated Weilbacher and accused him of killing some of his companions, but the battle between these deeply flawed men continued to the end. In a taped conversation near the end of the siege, Carrasco challenges Bill Weilbacher to a duel. “I'm going to come out and have a gunfight with him,” he tells a reporter.

Carrasco was a brilliant but brutal drug dealer whose drug cartel flooded our streets with heroin; Weilbacher was a rogue cop feared in the barrios who was accused of being involved in racially motivated arrests and beatings on the city's predominantly black East Side.

My years of reporting on the story for a forthcoming podcast called The Lord raises some serious questions for the San Antonio Police Department about an officer who was allowed to work with impunity for years. One retired officer told me, “I don't know how Weilbacher got away with it for so long.”

Not only do corrections officers and police officers have to face their actions for their role in the Carrasco case; those of us in the Chicano community who tacitly supported Carrasco must also come to terms with our defense and support of a drug dealer. My family, like many others in the community, has not escaped the scourge of heroin addiction that Fred Carrasco helped create. One of my cousins, a heroin addict and dealer known as “Baby,” was executed three days after Carrasco's arrest. Baby's murder remains unsolved, and I recently learned that some in my family believe the Carrasco organization was behind his murder. As I look back on those days, I must admit that my youthful fascination with Carrasco the outlaw troubles me. I and many others chose to overlook Fred Carrasco's role in pacifying thousands of men and women in our neighborhoods. We must look within and explore the reasons why we ignore the impact of Carrasco's multimillion-dollar heroin business on our families and communities.

Soon after Carrasco's hold on power ended, Governor Dolph Briscoe agreed to a public investigation to answer questions about the actions of prison officials and law enforcement — particularly the Texas Rangers. But Texas officials “successfully stalled the issue” until national coverage had largely faded from public consciousness. To date, I have found no record of a public investigation.

I wish I could say 50 years after Fred Gomez Carrasco's death that the problems his case exemplified have been resolved. But after my conversations with Carrasco's colleagues, police officers, defense attorneys, and academics, it's clear that not much has changed. Issues of race, poverty, addiction, criminal justice, and mass incarceration are still pervasive. Engaging with the history of the siege and the rise of Fred Gomez Carrasco can help us address these ongoing problems.