On April 4, Bekah Hinojosa and her supporters had a demonstration in front of Brownsville City Hall in order to clear Hinojosa’s name. One year ago, Hinojosa was charged with a Class B Misdemeanor for allegedly spraying Anti Elon Musk Graffiti on the BTX mural downtown. This led to her arrest and to her being doxxed on Facebook by the current sitting mayor, Trey Mendez.
Hinojosa is a member of Another Gulf is Possible and was arrested for allegedly graffitiing the mural. After her arrest, Hinojosa’s mugshot was posted on Mayor Mendez’s Facebook account, as well her job and a description of being “Anti Space-X”.
Hinojosa spoke about her experiences from her issues with SpaceX to her arrest to her demonstration in City Hall on April 4.
“For years, people have been speaking about SpaceX operations and the city has just ignored them,” Hinojosa said. “So that’s part of why we were out there, to demand the city drop the charge against me and address the real issue, which is spacex operation, which is the mayor doxing me online, which is the violent arrest I was subject to last year.”
On April 4, the rally was held at the City Commission meeting with several people petitioning the council to drop the charges on Hinojosa and calling for an apology from Mayor Mendez as well as other issues such as the gentrification of Brownsville, Elon Musk’s influence on the city, damages and harm to the Carrizo Comecrudo tribe and damages to the environment.
Christopher Basaldú, member of the Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe of Texas protested to the city council not only on the matter of Hinojosa’s charges but on the damages inflicted to the Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe and the coastlines they hold sacred. He spoke about Hinojosa’s situation and what it could mean for the people of Brownsville.
“What happened is you have the mayor bragging about this abuse of power, where the police arrested Miss Hinojosa, on this suspicion, on this allegation and there was no warrant,” Basaldú said. “These are the kinda authoritarian tactics where if Brownsville gets away with this injustice, when are they going to come after you?”.
During the meeting he railed against the City Council for going after Hinojosa, rolling over to Elon Musk, for ignoring the petitions of the Carrizo Comecrudo tribe and called for an investigation into Mayor Mendez.
John Cowen, Commissioner at large for Brownsville, was there during the demonstration and while he hopes that everyone gets a chance to speak, that this ultimately does not fall on the city commission.
“It’s the current legal process taking place and I don’t think it be appropriate for me to comment on it, but it’s unfortunate that this has to be done in public the way it is,” Cowen said. “But the City Commission is not involved in that, that’s at the district attorney level.”.
For more information about Hinojosa’s campaign, visit her website here.
