Alvaro Luna Hernandez
#255735
Hughes Unit
Rt. 2, Box 4400
Gatesville, TX 76597
Alvaro Luna Hernandez is a Chicano-Mexicano activist and political prisoner serving 50 years in prison for an alleged assault on an Alpine police officer. He has been long-time anti-police brutality and prison abolition activist, which has led to constant harassment by local and state police in west Texas.
Alvaro was born in Alpine, Texas, in 1952, into a racially segregated society, where police ruled the Chicano barrio with an iron fist. On June 12, 1968, Alvaro was with 16 year old Ervay Ramos and witnessed Ramos murdered in cold-blood by Alpine Police Bud Powers, a known racist cop with a history of brutality against Chicanos. Powers never served a day in jail and escaped justice under the protection of the U.S. Judicial system, until his recent natural death in November 2009 in Alpine. Along with the Texas Rangers’ murder of a young Chicano to break union strikers of the United Farm Workers Union in South Texas, the Ramos and Farm Workers cases were documented by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in their 1970 report Mexican Americans and the Administration of Justice in the Southwest (Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.)
In 1976, Alvaro was convicted and sentenced to life for a murder he did not commit. Media exposure of the injustice of his conviction led to his eventual release. In the ‘80s, Alvaro was brutally beaten by police in Alpine, Texas. He responded by successfully suing the Pecos Sheriff’s department. These two incidents further politicized Alvaro and gave birth to his long career and dedication as an anti-prison and anti-brutality activist.
Throughout the ‘90s, Alvaro Luna Hernandez worked as the national coordinator for the Ricardo Aldape Guerra Defense Committee, which led the struggle to free Mexican national Aldape Guerra from Texas’ death row after being framed by Houston police.
The committee led a campaign that successfully stopped two scheduled executions of Aldape Guerra and won his eventual release in 1997. In March 1993, Alvaro was a nongovernmental organization (NGO) delegate before the 49th session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland. Before the U.N. General Assembly, he exposed the U.S. government’s dismal human rights record and its human rights violations of U.S. political prisoners. In addition, Alvaro spearheaded the National Movement of La Raza, Stop the Violence Youth Committee and the Prisoners Solidarity Committee in Houston. He spoke frequently at many colleges, universities and conferences around the country, addressing issues ranging from injustices in the criminal system against people of color, to self-determination, human rights and political prisoners.
On July 18, 1996, Sheriff Jack McDaniel of Alpine, Texas, went to arrest Alvaro at his home on a charge of aggravated robbery (later dismissed with Alvaro as his own counsel). No warrant for the arrest was issued. When the unarmed Alvaro questioned the sheriff’s action, the officer drew his weapon. Before he could shoot, Alvaro disarmed him and fled.
Alvaro was aware the police had been monitoring him since his arrival in Alpine and had often expressed fears he would be assassinated by the police. At his trial, police said they felt Alvaro was a “troublemaker” and Alvaro knew his history as a barrio organizer made him a target of law enforcement who were used to little resistance from the Chicano Mexicano community. The police in west Texas have a history of abuse, frame-ups and brutality against Mexicanos. 90% of felony indictments are against Chicanos in a county whose population is 50% Mexican-American.
In fear for his life, Alvaro eluded police. Days later, Alvaro returned to his mother’s house. A heavily armed law enforcement contingent converged on the home. Without identifying themselves, police began shooting indiscriminately at the house, cars parked in front and at the public streetlights. At trial, witnesses described the police shooting as a “war zone.” Alvaro returned fire in self-defense but never shot nor injured anyone. Alvaro dialed 911 (emergency) and alerted other officials that police were shooting at him and would not allow him to surrender.
Eventually, the situation deescalated and Alvaro was taken into custody. Alvaro was charged with two counts of aggravated assault – one count for disarming the sheriff and one count for a wound suffered by Sgt. Curtis Hines from a ricocheting police bullet. Alvaro’s elderly mother was charged with “hindering apprehension” and jailed.
Protests demanding Alvaro’s release were staged outside the courthouse in Odessa during the trial. Other protests were held in El Paso, Texas; San Diego, California; and Cuidad Juarez, Mexico. On June 2-9, 1997, Alvaro was convicted of “threatening” the sheriff, but acquitted on the charge of shooting Sgt. Hines. He received a 50-year sentence.
Since his imprisonment Alvaro has continued to be harassed by prison authorities. They have gone so far as to accuse him of gang affiliations and transferring him to administrative segregation. Alvaro has consistently denied gang affiliations and states he was targeted because of his political views, and connections he made with fellow Mexicano captives.
Because of outside pressure from Alvaro’s supporters, Alvaro was finally transferred out of segregation. Despite the small victory, Alvaro Luna Hernandez is still continuously monitored and harassed.
Alvaro is currently held in a repressive “control unit” in a Texas prison, the Hughes Unit, located in Gatesville, Texas. He continues to protest his innocence and calls for civil rights investigation into his police frame-up, as a victim of the U.S. Government’s war on dissent. Alvaro is a brilliant political thinker and revolutionary writer, as well as a “jailhouse lawyer” and a leader of the prison movement, from his “sensory-deprivation” Texas prison cell.
Resources
Alvaro’s statement to the Break the Chains conference, 2003.
Denver ABC’s page on Alvaro.
