Texas judge who tried to access VIP area at Houston rodeo concert claims racism, sexism at play
A Texas judge said she was manhandled while attending a concert at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo this week after staffers refused to let her access a VIP area and escorted her out of the venue. The judge questioned whether she was the victim of racism or sexism despite being given $9,000 in freebies.
Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said she and five guests — another elected official, the official's children and the parents of a U.S. Air Force sergeant who recently died — attended a Megan Moroney concert at the popular rodeo show Tuesday.
However, the group was barred from the venue's premium floor access area — the ticket area known as "the dirt" — because they had not paid the $425 per head price tag for wristbands and the show was sold out, the rodeo said in response to a Fox News Digital request for comment.
Hildalgo said she had previously been allowed on the floor access area without a wristband "based on the county's relationship with the rodeo." She said she assumed the area was "friends of rodeo leaders or for rodeo leaders or such."
The judge said she then asked if her guests could be let into the area before she was grabbed, shoved and threatened with arrest.
"I understand the rodeo committee members have a job to do," Hidalgo wrote in a scathing letter to rodeo board Chairwoman Pat Phillips and rodeo President Chris Boleman.
"They are trying to keep thousands of people safe at the largest rodeo in the world. I did not want to prevent the committee members from doing their jobs, nor was I trying to take advantage of ‘privileges’ or call in favors. I was not even interested in seeing the concert. I was only interested in helping community members enjoy an important event."
Rodeo officials said Hidalgo was asked several times to return to the county suite where she was seated previously. She was then asked to leave and was escorted out of the venue.
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"There were numerous law enforcement officers who were present and none saw any physical harm, including ‘manhandling,’" Phillips and Boleman said in a joint letter addressing the matter. "Ultimately, when she would not go back to her designated seats in the suite, she was escorted out."
Rodeo officials said Hidalgo requested and was given $9,000 in floor access tickets for herself and her guests for three previous nights for concerts to see J Balvin, Dwight Yoakam and Luke Bryan.
"We are very disappointed in Judge Hidalgo’s actions Tuesday night and since," Phillips and Boleman said. "But we must enforce the same access policies for everyone. The Judge is the only elected official to request, even demand, these seats night after night. As Chairwoman of the Board, the idea that she was treated this way because she’s a woman or Hispanic is absolutely false and insulting."
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In a letter Wednesday to Phillips and Boleman, the judge said she has "never accepted anything inappropriately or used my role to personally enrich myself even though many others have."
She further questioned the treatment she would have received had she been a "male county executive" before claiming that White men have "felt emboldened to treat others, particularly Hispanics, with physical force."
"I don't travel without my passport anymore," she wrote. "Many of us do, especially those of us who are not white-passing."
Fox News Digital reached out to Hidalgo.
The Houston Police Officers' Union posted an illustration on its Facebook page of a law enforcement officer escorting a woman by her arm as she says, "I’m the County Judge." The union said the image was satire.
On her Facebook and Instagram pages, Hidalgo shared videos of her leaving the concert venue from her vantage point and audio recordings with rodeo staffers.
"This is not about a wristband or a ticket or a concert," she said. "It is about the mentality of some people and the way they treat others.
"If this is how they treat me — by virtue of my position the Ex-Officio Director of the rodeo, landlord, because NRG stadium belongs to Harris County and leases to the rodeo, how do they treat everybody else?"
A Harris County judge, Hidalgo serves as its chief executive and presiding officer of the Commissioners Court, the county's governing body, managing a budget over $4 billion.