Texas Troops in Illinois, Police on Trial, and Ghosts That Can’t Mind Their Business. From The Barbed Wire

Howdy gang. It’s Brian Gaar, senior editor of The Barbed Wire, back with some crisp fall reading. This week, our beloved state makes headlines for historic criminal trials, a controversial National Guard deployment, a pop star reclaiming his story, and a few lingering ghosts. So cross your fingers for cooler temps and let’s dig in.

For the first time in the city’s history, San Antonio police officers face murder charges for an on-duty shooting. Melissa Perez, killed in 2023, became one of 22 people shot by SAPD that year, but hers is the rare case leading to criminal accountability. Her daughter, Alexis Tovar, has been bracing for the trial that could redefine what "credible threat" really means when officers respond to mental health calls.

Oscar Wyatt was a charismatic hostage-freer and oil tycoon who ruled Houston in the 1990s. He was brash, offensive, and a self-described chauvinist, and he lived to be 101. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg, as our editor in chief wrote this week.

About 200 Texas National Guard members were sent to Chicago to "protect" federal agents, courtesy of President Trump and Governor Abbott, sparking insults, lawsuits, and fears of a partisan civil war. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker called Abbott "Trump’s lackey." Social media mocked the troops’ photos. The takeaway: Texas’ idea of diplomacy is marching into another state with rifles and confusion.

And if Texas politics are exhausting, at least Khalid is here to save something. His new album embraces 2000s-style pop with R&B flair, finally giving us a male pop star who isn’t deeply cancellable. Outed as gay online only months after his last album, Khalid used this project to reclaim his story and remind everyone that fun, danceable, unproblematic pop still exists.

Finally, in advance of Halloween, we’ve rounded up some spooky stories. From La Llorona haunting Laredo waterways to a Dallas Holiday Inn holding lingering mobster energy, Texas is crawling with ghosts — some tragic, some terrifying, all completely unconcerned with your sanity. So if you’re creeped out by our state’s leadership, just wait until you meet its spirits.

‘The Video Speaks for Itself.’ An Historic Murder Case Puts San Antonio Officers on Trial.

San Antonio Police Officers shot and killed Melissa Perez in 2023. Now, her daughter is hoping a criminal trial will mark the first time murder charges stick for on-duty officers in the city.

By Paul Flahive

The 379th Criminal District Court in San Antonio was bulging with people last Friday, so filled with journalists, police, attorneys, and staff that bailiffs shooed those without a seat out the door. 

People wanted to see, first-hand, the unprecedented trial that was set to begin. 

Before the judge called the room to order, Bexar County Assistant District Attorney Darly Harris leaned over the bannister separating the gallery from the prosecutors’ table. He brought his face level with that of the young woman seated there. He quietly appeared to tell her what was coming up, and he reminded her about the gaggle of press just a few aisles behind her. 

While outwardly calm, Alexis Tovar, 26, had been nervous about the morning’s events for two years.

"I’m on high alert all the time waiting for this trial. So mentally, it’s exhausting," Tovar told The Barbed Wire a few days prior. 

Before long, Tovar was wiping her eyes with a tissue as attorneys gave their opening statements. The prosecution’s and defense’s arguments charted different realities of what led to the death of Tovar’s mother, Melissa Perez. 

The prosecution, through Harris, made the case that over the course of two and a half hours, San Antonio police officers escalated a once-calm situation and murdered Perez. Defense attorneys for those officers argued the unstable woman repeatedly threatened the police, nearly striking them with a deadly weapon.  

Perez was killed in the early hours of June 23, 2023 — one of 22 people shot by San Antonio Police that year, according to reporting from KSAT. 

Unlike the other shooting cases that year, in which 14 people died, Perez’s case resulted in the termination of San Antonio Police officers. Days later, they were arrested for her murder. 

The murder charges were unheard of. Never in the history of San Antonio, the seventh largest city in the country, has an officer been charged with murder for an on-the-job shooting. 

No charges were filed against SAPD Sgt. David Perry when he shot Hannah Westall in a shopping center parking lot on March 20, 2019. The 95-lb woman had a BB gun shaped like an UZI submachine gun shoved into the back of her pants. Dash camera footage showed that Perry shot her within 15 seconds, though Westall never pointed the weapon at the officer, and told him it was fake, according to court documents from Tovar’s lawsuit.

John Montez was shot twice in the chest while holding a knife in his kitchen. His wife had called the police, worried the combat veteran who was suffering from mental health problems might hurt himself. Police say he lunged at them, but court documents from Tovar’s lawsuit allege his family saw body camera footage showing no lunge on that fateful March day in 2021.

Both shootings were investigated, and police in Montez’s death were brought before a grand jury, but neither resulted in charges, both qualifying as a genuine threat to the officers lives. 

Perez’s case stretched the definition of "credible threat." Can a woman in her own apartment behind a locked glass patio door with a blunt object really be a threat to police officers? 

According to experts at the Police Integrity Research Group and Bowling Green University, police are hardly ever prosecuted for bad shootings. Their analysis of 15 years of data between 2005-2019 found only 2% of police were charged with murder in fatal encounters nationwide. 

"Few officers are convicted because juries and courts are reluctant to second-guess split-second life-or-death decisions of police officers in potentially violent street encounters," the study’s authors wrote. 

Want to see more? Become a member!