DALLAS — Bessie Rodriguez - the Dallas woman whose son was killed in 1973 by a police officer in a murder that rocked the city's Latino community - died Wednesday night, her family confirmed to WFAA.
She was 80 years old and was recently battling an illness. More information about her death was not available Thursday morning.
Rodriguez's 12-year-old son, Santos, was killed by Dallas police officer Darrell Cain on July 24, 1973. Cain was questioning Santos and his brother, David, about a petty theft at a gas station in Dallas' Little Mexico neighborhood, in what is now the Uptown Dallas area. As Cain interrogated the brothers, he held a gun to Santos' head and played a game of Russian roulette. But when he pulled the trigger, the gun went off and killed Santos.
Cain was convicted of murder and served around half of a five-year sentence.
Santos' death sparked outrage and backlash in Dallas' Latino community, leading to protests at the time. But for decades, Bessie Rodriguez did not receive an apology from the Dallas Police Department.
In July 2021, at a ceremony marking 48 years since Santos' death, she finally did.
Dallas police Chief Eddie Garcia read an apology, in English and Spanish, to Santos' mother.
"Thank you for letting me speak and say a few words, not only as a father, as a police chief, as a Latino, but also on behalf of every officer who wears this uniform,” Garcia said to Bessie Rodriguez, then 77. "I will not allow our department to forget. In order to improve, we must learn from the dark moments of our past."
Bessie in a 2020 interview with WFAA shared the pain of her son's death.
"He meant everything to me. He was my son. What they did to him was an injustice," she told WFAA. "My boys didn't have a chance."