PROGRESO, Texas (ValleyCentral) On a cold Thursday night in January, the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office dispatched two deputies to the Progreso International Bridge. Progreso Mayor Gerardo “Jerry” Alanis and his brother, Progreso school board President Francisco “Frank” Alanis, had just returned from Mexico.
Police in a Texas border town used stay-at-home orders in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic to unlawfully stop and arrest a high school senior driving to his mother’s house, according to a civil rights lawsuit that has its first hearing this week.
The lawsuit cites findings from a ProPublica and Texas Tribune investigation that featured Socrates Shawn, who was commuting between his divorced parents’ homes when he was pulled over and arrested in April 2020 by an officer in Progreso, Texas.