The Echo That Won’t Die: How Modern Policing Still Mirrors the Logic of La Matanza

 SDC NEWS ONE  INVESTIGATIVE EDITION ANALYSIS

“The Echo That Won’t Die: How Modern Policing Still Mirrors the Logic of La Matanza”

By SDC News One Staff News Writers

South Texas [IFS] -- The story of La Matanza is not simply a century-old tragedy; it’s a blueprint. A quiet, unspoken operating manual that shaped how law enforcement sees Mexican-origin communities in Texas, how officers exert power, and how accountability is dodged. It isn’t that today’s Texas police or Rangers are committing mass borderland executions — history never repeats itself verbatim. But it does rhyme, and in Texas, the rhyme scheme hasn’t changed much since 1918.

Here’s how the past echoes into the present.

1. The “Border Exception” to Accountability

From 1915 to 1919, Rangers could kill civilians near the border and face virtually no consequences. Today, the border region still functions as a space where normal accountability slips away.

Modern parallels

• Operation Lone Star (2021–present):
  Governor Greg Abbott’s state-run border operation has led to:

  • arrests without probable cause,

  • coercive detentions,

  • migrants and U.S. citizens held in makeshift prisons,

  • troopers directed to push migrants back into the river.

  Much like the Ranger era, state-level force operates with minimal oversight and little judicial scrutiny.

• Border Patrol’s historic lack of transparency:
  For decades, Border Patrol agents were shielded by layered jurisdiction — DHS, federal immunity, and local prosecutors unwilling to challenge federal officers.

When a border becomes a militarized line instead of a community, abuses follow. That was true in 1915, and it’s true now.

2. The Ranger Myth Machine Lives On

The Rangers of the 1910s weren’t lone heroes with polished holsters — they were agents of racial control. Yet Hollywood, state museums, and political speeches still sell the Ranger myth as a cornerstone of Texas identity.

The consequences today

• The Texas Rangers Heritage Center in Fredericksburg initially refused to acknowledge Ranger-involved massacres.

• High-profile politicians still invoke the Rangers as symbols of “tough justice.”

• Rangers today maintain a reputation closer to legend than reality — which remains a shield against scrutiny.

When a police force is mythologized, accountability dies.

3. Over-Policing Latino Communities Didn’t Come From Nowhere

The idea that Mexican and Mexican American residents are uniquely “suspect” is a holdover from La Matanza’s narrative. In the 1910s, Rangers portrayed ethnic Mexicans as “bandits,” “revolutionaries,” and “invaders” — terms that have modern-day counterparts.

Today’s echoes

• Racial profiling cases continue in Texas, often in traffic stops.

• Immigration status checks have become stand-ins for racialized suspicion.

• Latino communities still report over-surveillance and under-protection — the same dynamics their great-grandparents faced.

What happened in 1915 taught law enforcement that Mexican communities were “police-first, rights-later” spaces.

4. Vigilantes Didn’t Vanish — They Got Rebranded

In La Matanza, vigilantes rode alongside Rangers in posses that murdered civilians. Today, we call them “militias” or “armed volunteers,” and they still patrol South Texas ranchlands.

Examples include:

• Armed civilian groups attempting to “assist Border Patrol,”

• Militia members detaining migrants at gunpoint,

• Ranchers coordinating with state troopers in joint “border security groups.”

The line between state power and civilian vigilantes is still blurry — just as it was in 1915.

5. Modern Use of Force Reflects the Same Racial Asymmetry

In the Matanza era, white victims received investigations; Mexican victims received silence.

A century later, that asymmetry hasn’t fully disappeared.

Documented trends

• Latino men in Texas are overrepresented in police killings, especially in border counties.

• Cases involving Latino victims often receive less media attention.

• Officers involved in excessive force incidents along the border are rarely prosecuted.

Texas’s policing culture inherited an unspoken rule from 1915: violence in certain communities simply doesn’t trigger the same alarm.

6. Forgotten Land, Forgotten Families — Still Fighting for Recognition

Just as families in 1918 were denied justice, modern families in South Texas often face:

• pressure not to file complaints,

• difficulty accessing bodycam footage,

• internal investigations that drag on without resolution.

The descendants of Porvenir say the hardest part isn’t the atrocity. It’s the erasure.
That feeling remains heartbreakingly familiar to families today who lose loved ones in police encounters and then fight to keep their stories from fading out of the news cycle.

7. The State’s Resistance to Historical Reckoning

For decades, Texas officials worked overtime to bury the truth of La Matanza. The same instinct — institutional self-protection — shapes modern policing.

Examples:

• Police unions opposing transparency reforms.

• State officials blocking local attempts to curb racial profiling.

• Border operations shielded from public records requests.

When a state refuses to examine its past, it also refuses to reform its present.

8. The Real Legacy: Who Gets to Be Safe?

At its core, La Matanza was about who the state valued enough to protect — and who it didn’t.

Today, the same question echoes:

• Who is protected by policing?

• Who is targeted by it?

• Who is allowed to call the police without fear?

• Who must think twice because of their last name, their accent, or their zip code?

This is not theoretical. It’s lived reality for millions of Texans.

9. The Path Forward: Truth Before Transformation

Modern Texas is slowly — painfully — inching toward acknowledging the truth:

• Historical markers for Porvenir,

• University curricula including La Matanza,

• Community-led archives preserving victim names,

• Latino historians reclaiming erased narratives.

But acknowledgment isn’t enough.

If the state wants to truly break from its past, it must:

• demythologize the Ranger legacy,

• strip policing of racialized assumptions,

• impose real oversight,

• and finally stop treating the border as an exception zone.

Only then can the century-long echo finally fade.