Police, Trump supporters sued over Texas highway incident
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Civil rights organizations and people who were part of a Biden campaign caravan last fall that was surrounded on a Texas highway by Trump supporters filed two federal lawsuits Thursday, alleging local law enforcement failed to respond to efforts to intimidate them.
Videos shared on social media from Oct. 30 show a group of cars and pickup trucks — many adorned with large Trump flags — riding alongside the campaign bus as it traveled from San Antonio to Austin. The Trump supporters at times boxed 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 led Democrats to cancel an event later in the day. Then-President Donald Trump criticized the FBI at the time after the agency said it was investigating.
The two lawsuits, filed by Protect Democracy, the Texas Civil Rights Project, and Willkie Farr & Gallagher, include former Texas Sen. Wendy Davis — a Democrat who attracted national attention for her 13-hour filibuster of an anti-abortion bill in the state Capitol — who was on the campaign bus that day.
“I really worry about the opportunity — if things like these go unaddressed — for this to be considered the new normal,” Davis said Thursday during a press conference.
One complaint alleges seven drivers involved in the so-called “Trump Train” violated an 1871 federal law often called the “Ku Klux Klan Act,” originally designed to stop political violence against Black people. The lawsuits accuses the group of participating in a “pre-planned vehicular assault” against the Biden-Harris caravan while driving through the college town of San Marcos. The Klu Klux Klan Act has also been cited in some injury lawsuits following the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, advocates said Thursday.
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