This sounds like a case of smuggling gone awry, to put it lightly. The story keeps getting worse all the time.
I bet the Governor blames Biden.
That wouldn’t surprise me at all.
Moderator Note
I have tagged this as breaking news, so from here on let’s keep all comments appropriate for breaking news threads (no hijacks, rants, or political jabs, etc).
“Many of the people found inside the vehicle appeared to have been sprinkled with steak seasoning, the official said, in perhaps an attempt to cover up the smell of people as the smugglers were transporting them.”
I would have been very happy to never have seen this sentence.
“These deaths are on Biden,” Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, said in a short statement on Twitter. “They are a result of his deadly open border policies. They show the deadly consequences of his refusal to enforce the law.”
Jesus Fuck.
If the borders are open, Abbot, why were the migrants smuggled in?
ETA: I apologize. I read the mod note about keeping this apolitical, but damn.
I can’t even imagine going through that just to try to make a living.
Yeah, my comment was a quote from the NYT article, not political commentary from me.
It does seem Texas has more than its fair share of mass casualty events.
The smugglers never cease to reaffirm their disregard for life.
Really. Damn.
(And BTW that turned out to be an especially macabre ironic post/user/avatar combo…)
Abbott is Teflon, and his halo is electroplate.
(If this remark is too political, please delete)
The coyotes are the pond slime of humanity. They squeeze money from people who have nothing, and then abandon them at the least little sign of trouble.
~VOW
Moderating:
Yes, @VOW , definitely too political. And you know better.
Not a warning, but really really close.
Everyone – Please avoid politics. Please don’t ask the mods to clean up after you, either. That’s now how this board is moderated.
Oops.
1.) How would sprinkling people with seasoning possibly cover up smell? Especially to police dogs, who I assume it was aimed at? Are the smugglers especially stupid?
2.) Am I the only one who’s thoughts immediately went here?
Criminals are, by and large, the dumbest people on the planet.
I have since heard that the death toll was updated to 51.
As for the steak seasoning, that’s just bizarre. They would have needed bulk bags of the stuff to coat that many people. I also wouldn’t be surprised if some of them, as they became more and more overheated, started licking it up for the salt.
I would sooner believe it went more like this:
The cargo of people was disguised as a cargo of boxes of bottles (or bulk bags) of steak seasoning. IOW the smuggler’s plan was that if/when an inspector opened the trailer back doors, he would see a wall of boxes from McCormick or whoever. Which wall is just one or two cases thick, with another 45 feet of people crammed into the space forward of the boxes.
In the panicky chaos inside the locked trailer once the people realized they were abandoned and trapped, the nice neat stack of boxes got shredded and a bunch of the stuff got spread everywhere. Remember everything inside the trailer would have been happening in total darkness.
Investigator later opens the doors, sees dead people with spices all over them, in addition to the expected blood, poop, etc, and makes a half thought through statement that’s garbled by the press then spread far and wide.
And here we are.
The birth of another Urban Legend. God have mercy on those poor people!
The driver and two accomplices have been captured. I don’t know if the driver was the coyote who assembled this tragedy, or if he was just some poor idiot who was making a few bucks.
Worse than slave ships.
~VOW
Another weird twist. Apparently the driver didn’t flee the scene but stayed and pretended to be one of the victims.
I don’t know. You would have to tell us what “here” is. Don’t force readers to jump through hoops just to find out what the hell you’re on about.