DALLAS — A portion of road stretching nearly six miles on the eastern side of Dallas could be renamed in honor of Santos Rodriguez, a 12-year-old boy wrongfully detained and killed by a city police officer in 1973.
The proposal made by Dallas City Councilmember Jaime Resendez is set to be heard by City Plan Commission’s subdivision review committee at Dallas City Hall at 8:30 a.m. Thursday, according to the agenda.
The proposal suggests renaming Jim Miller Road between Great Trinity Forest Way and Highland Road to Santos Rodriguez Road. Resendez said he chose Jim Miller Rd. instead of an Uptown Dallas street, where Rodriguez grew up, because he wanted to honor Rodriguez within his district.
Resendez told WFAA that he was inspired to create the proposal after watching a documentary that featured Rodriguez's mother expressing her disappointment in the city of Dallas for not honoring her son with a street renaming years ago. Resendez said he took it personally and wanted to do something within his power to right that wrong.
This past July marked 50 years since the boy was killed by a Dallas officer.
The officer, Darrell Cain, was questioning Rodriguez and his brother, David, about a petty theft at a gas station in Dallas' Little Mexico neighborhood. As he interrogated Santos and David, Cain held his gun to Santos Rodriguez's head and played a game of Russian roulette. But when he pulled the trigger, the gun went off and killed Santos.
Santos' death on July 24, 1973, sparked outrage in Dallas' Latino community, but it took decades for the Dallas Police Department to apologize, and Cain never did. He received a sentence of five years for murder, and served around half of that time.
WFAA marked the 50th year since Santos' death with "Justicia Para Santos: A La Vida Special," a special 30-minute program which you can watch in the video player below:
The proposed name change would need to be approved by this review committee, then the City Plan Commission and finally Dallas City Council before going into effect.
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