ustxtxb_obs_1976_06_18_50_00011-00000_000.pdf

you’ll be tickled about the ribs. Mon.-Fri. 11:00-7:30 Sat. 12:00-4:00 The Outpost Barbecue 10930 There is only one Earth brand shoe. The perfect shoe for people who stand on their feet all day. The shoe invented to make walking and standing easier and more comfortable. EARTH SHOE STORE 474-1895 1610 Lavaca Austin, Texas 78701 3:1975, Kalso Systemel, In:. serious charge in Laredopossession of herion. He did five and a half years in the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth. Chacon, then, is no stranger to smuggling contraband. “I have the perfect background for smuggling drugs and guns, don’t I?” he admitted. He added, however, that he turned against drugs while in Leavenworth. That’s when he became interested in politics and the chicano movement. After his release from Leavenworth in 1972, he returned to the Valley and entered Colegio Jacinto Trevino. In the last few years, he has been involved in much of the Valley’s social ferment. He worked with La Raza Unida and the farmworker melon strike last year. It was during the strike that he met Pablo De La 0. De La 0, Chacon said, represented himself as a resident of Monterrey who had been involved with an organization called CASA in Los Angeles. CASA is concerned primarily with the rights of aliens, legal and illegal, in the United States and holds strongly to the theory that the MexicanAmerican boundary is an imaginary line. Fittingly, De La 0 was in the country illegally. De La 0 and Chacon had been friends for a .few months when Chacon was asked to do his pal a favor. De La 0, it seems, wanted to drive to Mexico City. Object: marriage. He had purchased a car, a ’73 Ranchero, under a false name, in San Antonio. Would Chacon be a friend and drive the car across the border? Then together they could drive to Mexico City. Chacon, who said he has never been to the Mexican capital, agreedand set out for Mexico just two weeks after the birth of his second child, Agosto. When Chacon met De La 0 in Nuevo Laredo, he appeared to be having a last bachelor fling with a Colombian woman, Elsie Morales. On the outskirts of Monterrey, the Ranchero was stopped by a roadblock. of what Chacon estimated at 30 uniformed and plain clothes Mexican police. They knew who they were waiting for, Chacon said, because one officer was carrying an album with a photo of Chacon from his Leavenworth days. Chacon, Morales, and De La 0 were handcuffed and carted off, Chacon said, without being charged. The charges became clear the following morning, however, when the prisoners were brought out for photographs and a police press conference next to a stack of rifles, ammunition, explosives, and revolutionary literature supposedly found inside the walls of the truck. Chacon denies any knowledge that he was carrying the contraband. If the photo album at the roadblock had made Chacon suspicious of a possible setup, the events of the next few days increased that suspicion. The prisoners were separated, and led away for interrogation. Two officers, he said, bandaged his head completely, removed all of his clothes, and tied him hand and foot. “Then,” he said, “my experience began.” Around his wife, Chacon was loath to go into the details of his treatment. To his brother Ernesto, however, he said that before he “confessed” he was beaten, given electric shocks, and tortured with water. He said that water was forced into his mouth and his nose via a hose and that he was pushed into a pool of water and held down until he passed out. Chacon said he was questioned not only about the contraband but also about the chicano movement, including his activities with Raza Unida and the farmworkers. \(In his confession he denounced Raza Unida he identified the voice of one of his interrogators as American, but the bandages blindfolding him prevented any better identification. Meanwhile, the authorities had deported Elsie Morales. And Pablo De La 0 “escaped”but not before information he supposedly was carrying led to the arrest of another Mexican-American activist, Salvador Abundis. Abundis has since signed a statement acknowledging responsibility for the gun-running episode, but specifically clearing Chacon of any knowledge of the smuggling plans. Chacon, it seems, would have profited from having a better group of friends. By then, the sun had warmed the exercise yard and we left the coffee shop. For the next few hours we sat and chatted. A baseball game was in progress. Children played basketball. In one corner of the yard a conjunto group belted out some popular tunes. Over the wall, the mountains glowed light blue. Finally, a whistle proclaimed the end of visiting hours and we said goodbye to Chacon. Martinez took Mitka from Concha, and Concha headed toward the female line. Inmates’ wives would be taken to rooms adjacent to the prison later, and their husbands would come for a conjugal visit until 6 p.m. June 18, 1976 11 ANDERSON & COMPANY \(MIAMI?, TEA SPICES AIJSTIN,TEXAS 7S731 Send me your list. Name Street City Zip 503 5 WEST 17 TH 4761C/116 kUStin, Texas 78701