TMD Spurns Information Request
in Guard Troop Drowning Mystery
Capitol Inside
May 10, 2022
The state agency that oversees the Texas National Guard decided on Tuesday to seek an opinion from Attorney General Ken Paxton on a request for information on Specialist Bishop Evans' drowning in the Rio Grande in an apparent migrant rescue mission last month.
Capitol Inside submitted a letter to the Texas Military Department on April 28 with an inquiry on information related to the 22-year-old soldier's disappearance in the river and the subsequent discovery of his body three days later. The TMD waited a full 10 days as allowed by law before denying the request pending an AG ruling on the bid to withhold the information that the agency has classified as confidential.
Operation Lone Star officials have publicly acknowledged that Evans entered the river, vanished in the waters and drowned. But the state military and police who are conducting the border security initiative for Governor Greg Abbott have declined to provide any additional details that would answer a flurry a questions that the tragedy sparked about the event itself and the state narrative that took almost two days to develop.
The TMD has offered no explanation up to now on whether Evans failed to resurface immediately after jumping or diving into the river, whether Evans struggled while swimming before going under for good or whether the artilleryman from Arlington, Texas reached the migrants and what happened if he did.
Capitol Inside focussed on witness accounts in the freedom of information request to the TMD that sought "any and all information on the death of TXNG SPC Bishop Evans in the Rio Grande on April 22, 2022- including but not limited to witnesses and their and any other accounts of the events that took place between the time he entered the river until he was deemed to be missing."
There have been no apparent signs of foul play in the young Texas troop's final moments. But Operation Lone Star officials have created suspicion with the paper-thin account of how and why the young Black Guard member couldn't stay afloat in a river that an ever-increasing number of people are crossing into Texas illegally every day.
TMD open records official Sarah Alexander informed Capitol Inside that the agency is seeking an exemption from open records law on the grounds that the information in question is confidential under state law.
"This request contains information we believe is excepted from required disclosure. Pursuant to Texas Government Code § 552.301, the Texas Military Department makes this timely request for a decision to withhold information," Alexander said. "The request is based on the exceptions contained in §§ 552.101 through 552.154."
The statutes that the TMD cited cover 109 pages in the Government Code chapter on public information and open records.
Evans' death was the single most embarrassing episode for Operation Lone Star since the governor hatched it in March 2021 for the sake of fighting illegal immigration and drug cartels that he claimed to be thriving under President Joe Biden's alleged open border policies. OLS has been immersed in problems from the outset - with four suicides, reports of widespread alcoholism, depression, poor pay and living conditions and bad morale in the ranks of troops whose lives were uprooted with families suffering hardships in their absence.
Operation Lone Star suffered another public relations setback on Tuesday when the Texas Military Department initiated an investigation into reports by Del Rio residents of women spending hours each day with soldiers in military and private vehicles that are parked at the Rio Grande. Fox News homeland security reporter Ali Bradley posted a video and photo on Twitter today that shows women getting in and out of cars. The TMD announced the probe in a note to Bradley, who passed it along in a tweet.
While there's been no reason to suspect sinister events in the Evans drowning, the vague and secretitive nature of the TMD's handling of the death raises the specter that it could be simply trying to avoid the appearance that the Guard members at the border were ill-equipped and unprepared for the responsibilities they've been given in OLS.
Operation Lone Star officials have acknowledged that Evans had not been provided with a floatation device as a result of administrative delays in Austin. The Texas Guard enlisted help from the U.S. Border Patrol in river rescue training this past weekend from the USBP's elite special unit BORSTAR - almost three weeks after Evans vanished in the river in a mystery that Operation Lone Star has created and fueled with its silence.
The TMD initially reported that Evans was trying to save a female migrant from drowning in the river in Eagle Pass. The state revised the story the following day - saying that the Guard troop was actually seeking to help two migrants whose genders were not specified. The TMD announced several hours later that - based on information from the Department of Public Safety - both of the migrants in the failed rescue bid had been identified as transnational drug trafficker.
Abbott praised Evans for his heroics before the TMD told the Guard members at the Rio Grande to refrain from any more migrant rescue attempts in the river.
more to come ...
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