[ [link removed] ]Powered by People[ [link removed] ]Powered by People

[ [link removed] ]I’m supporting Eugene Howard for County Judge. This is an important,
local race in Brazoria County, Texas. I hope you will read my message
below and then donate $5 or more to Eugene Howard’s campaign.

[ [link removed] ]Last week 18-year-old John Mendoza Jr. was shot and killed by a
Brazoria County sheriff’s deputy. According to the Mendoza family
attorney, John had just returned from his freshman year at Texas State and
was exercising in a park near his home with three friends late Monday
night.

The boys noticed law enforcement observing them, and feeling
uncomfortable, left the park in Mendoza’s car.

[3]John Mendoza Jr. via FacebookJohn Mendoza Jr. via Facebook

The sheriff’s deputy who had been watching them at the park followed their
car and then attempted to initiate a traffic stop. It is unclear why.

The boys, scared and confused by the actions of the deputy, chose to drive
to Mendoza’s home where they hoped his father would help them resolve the
issue with the deputy.

Mendoza pulled into his garage and the sheriff’s deputy pulled in behind
him, at which point the deputy exited his car, walked up to the driver’s
side door of Mendoza’s vehicle and shot him through the closed window. It
took about ten minutes before paramedics arrived on the scene. Mendoza was
transported to a hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Neighbors’ surveillance cameras capture the video of Mendoza driving down
his street towards his home, with the deputy close behind. Because the
range of the camera does not include Mendoza’s house, [ [link removed] ]after the cars
pass we are only able to hear the audio which demonstrates that after the
deputy cuts his siren there is silence for 8 seconds before a single shot
is fired. There is no audible warning or command given to Mendoza in those
8 seconds.

I should add that neither Mendoza nor his three friends were armed.

John’s father, John Mendoza Sr. has described his son’s killing as an
execution. “In any other situation,” he said, “somebody would be arrested
for this murder.”

The Brazoria County sheriff has referred the matter to the Texas Rangers
for investigation.

Lake Jackson, the community in Brazoria County where Mendoza was killed,
is about an hour south of Houston. Which means if you live within the
Houston media market, there’s a good chance you heard about this tragedy.
But for those of us outside of southeast Texas, this one might have passed
our notice.

I found out about it after getting a call from Eugene Howard who lives in
Brazoria County.

Eugene and I met five years ago when [ [link removed] ]we marched with William Barber and
the Poor People’s Campaign from Georgetown to Austin for greater voting
rights. For four days along that slow, hot walk we talked about what
brought us into the work, the opportunity we had to push the Biden
administration and Senate Democrats to use their political power to pass
the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the possibility that we wouldn’t get
the federal help we were pushing for (we didn’t) and what we’d have to do
to make up for it.

We both decided that we’d do what we could with what we had, Eugene as
President of the Brazoria County NAACP and me running Powered by People.
We knew there were tough and long roads ahead of us, but we also knew we’d
be traveling them in good company.

After Eugene told me about the tragedy of Mendoza’s killing on Monday
night I asked him what we can do to help. He said we need to keep a
spotlight on the investigation, make sure that there’s accountability and,
ultimately, justice. But that’s not enough. We need change.

[6]Eugene Howard via TheFacts.comEugene Howard via TheFacts.com

In 2024 Texas had the highest number of police-involved civilian deaths in
the country and while the number dropped in 2025, it’s still higher than
the national average. It may be a coincidence that Mendoza is Hispanic and
all three of his friends with him in the car were Black, but nearly a week
later we still don’t know why the deputy was observing them in the park,
why he tried to initiate a traffic stop, and why he shot and killed this
young man. We don’t even know who this deputy was. The Sheriff has yet to
release his name. But we do know that Brazoria County has a long and often
brutal history of injustice towards communities of color and that progress
has come too slow for too many.

Eugene Howard is running for Brazoria County Judge. If he were to win, he
could hold the Sheriff’s Department accountable through the power he and
the Commissioners’ Court would have over its budget. As Judge, he could
work with the County Sheriff to improve safety for everyone in the
community and ensure that shootings like these are properly investigated
and prevented from happening in the future. He could also determine
whether our state government’s insistence on enforcing federal immigration
law has created unsafe conditions that lead to over-policing of certain
communities. His victory would also signal a powerful change sweeping
through Texas.

But… Donald Trump won Brazoria County by 20 points in 2024 and Eugene’s a
Democrat. So, nice thought, but not gonna happen.

Except for the fact that something is happening in Texas right now that we
haven’t seen before.

You may remember a special election for a State Senate seat earlier this
year in Tarrant County (home to Fort Worth), long described as the last
reliably red urban county in America. [ [link removed] ]The Democrat won that race by 17%
in a district that Trump had won in 2024 by 14%. That’s a 31-point swing
in just a little more than a year.

You’ve certainly seen the phenomenon known as James Talarico, electrifying
voters across the state, in the usual places like Austin, Dallas and
Houston and the unusual ones as well, like Brazoria. But you may not have
heard that he’s joined by Democrats running for every single State House,
every State Senate and every Congressional seat in Texas for the first
time since 1974.

And then this – just last month Quentin Wiltz was elected mayor of
Pearland, the largest city in Brazoria County. His victory made him the
first Democrat elected in decades and the first Black mayor in Pearland’s
history.

[8]Pearland elects Democrat-backed Quentin Wiltz as first Black mayor in
GOP suburban stronghold

We have the power to change the things we cannot accept. I’m grateful
Eugene Howard is out there, still walking the walk and on the ballot to
bring change to Brazoria.

[ [link removed] ]If you can, please donate to support Eugene Howard for County Judge
today.

[ [link removed] ]Donate

Thank you,

Beto


 


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