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AUSTIN, Texas (AP) – Civil rights organizations and individuals who were part of a Biden campaign caravan surrounded by Trump supporters on a Texas freeway last fall filed two federal lawsuits Thursday, including allegations that local law enforcement agencies failed responded to the efforts intimidating them.
Videos shared on social media on Oct. 30 show a group of cars and pickups – many adorned with large Trump flags – driving alongside the campaign bus from San Antonio to Austin. The Trump supporters boxed at times in the bus. At one point one of the pickups can be seen colliding with an SUV that was driving behind the bus.
The incident caused the Democrats to cancel an event later in the day. The then President Donald Trump criticized the FBI at the time after the agency announced the investigation.
The two lawsuits filed by Protect Democracy, the Texas Civil Rights Project, and Willkie Farr & Gallagher include former Texas Senator Wendy Davis – a Democrat who uses her 13-hour filibuster to nationalize an anti-abortion law in the state Attention caught the Capitol – who was on the campaign bus that day.
“I’m really concerned about the possibility – if things like this are not addressed – that this is the new normal,” Davis said during a press conference Thursday.
One complaint alleges that seven drivers involved in the so-called “Trump Train” violated a federal act of 1871, often referred to as the “Ku Klux Klan Act,” which was originally intended to be political Stop violence against black people. The lawsuit alleges that the group participated in a “pre-planned vehicle attack” against the Biden Harris caravan while it was driving through the college town of San Marcos. The Ku Klux Klan bill has also been cited in some infringement lawsuits following the Jan. 6 riot in the U.S. Capitol, lawyers said Thursday.
Timothy Holloway, who drove the Biden bus, said during the news conference that about 20 minutes after leaving San Antonio, he noticed some Trump-marked vehicles were following him and others were trying to slow him down. He said he tried to focus on driving but feared for his life, especially when the local police were called but did not respond.
“I wasn’t there in the civil rights era, but what happened in Texas felt like something that could have happened then,” said Holloway, who is Black.
Another complaint has been made against law enforcement and public security officials in San Marcos, who “turned a blind eye to the attack despite appeals for help”.
A spokeswoman for the city of San Marcos told The Associated Press in a statement emailed that “neither the city of San Marcos nor the San Marcos police will comment on the matter due to pending litigation.”
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Acacia Coronado is a corps member of the Associated Press / Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a not-for-profit national utility that places journalists on local newsrooms to cover undercover issues.
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