Señor de Azpíroz to Mr. Hay.

[Translation.]
No. 28.]

Excellency: For the purposes which are expressed in the inclosures which I have the honor to transmit with this note, I call your attention to the complaint which the Mexican, Eulogio Zambrano, has presented to my Government, who was sentenced by the court of the county of Cameron, Brownsville, Tex., in the month of March of the present year, to five days’ imprisonment for theft, without the court which judged him taking into consideration the wounds which the “ranger,” McKenzie inflicted on Zambrano, in effecting his arrest.

Be pleased, etc.,

M. de Azpíroz.
[Inclosure.—Translation]

Señor Mariscal to Señor de Azpíroz.

The consul of Mexico in Brownsville, Tex., informs me in a note dated August 30 last, as follows:

“Obeying your orders and instructions, in your note No. 5, of date 15th of the current month, I have the honor to forward a legalized copy with its respective translation of the record of proceedingsa held by the court of the county with regard to the theft imputed to Eulogio Zambrano, who was sentenced to suffer five day’s arrest, the court omitting to consider the wounds which were inflicted by McKenzie, which were about two months in healing, disappearing March 31.

“I likewise transmit to your office copies, with their translations, of the record by Mr. Gavito, judge of peace of the same county. From all these documents you will deign to see the irregularity of the proceedings employed here in certain cases like this.

“As I had the honor to communicate to you on January 27 of the current year, the incidents took place as follows:

“Zambrano, being a servant of Santiago A. Browne, took possession of a fowling piece and pawned it. Being taken to the pawn shop of Messrs. Lastra by the same Mr. Browne, and on the way, already near the shop of the Lastras, they met the ranger, McKenzie. There Browne tells him that he may arrest Zambrano and take him to prison. The latter confesses that the fowling piece was pawned by him, and asks to speak with Browne, McKenzie standing at a very short distance from the two. At this moment Zambrano takes to flight, and at once the ranger shoots, at 6 or 8 paces distant, three shots, of which two were well aimed, since one pierced the shoulder and went out by the breast, and the second pierced the neck.

“Zambrano stopped, and was conducted on foot to prison. There he was cared for by the physician of the city.

“The offense committed by Zambrano was not one of those which excuse proceedings so brutal for the purpose of securing the guilty party. The [Page 476] delinquent was entirely unarmed. He would have been very easily overtaken and arrested at a short distance, since the act took place in the center of the city and at 3 o’clock in the afternoon.

“Two hours afterwards the ranger, McKenzie, was talking with his companions in a saloon, having been set at liberty with bail of $50. Three days afterwards he was called to Austin. He remained there two or three months, and at the present time is at his post here in this city.

“The court, as you will deign to see by the records that I have the honor to inclose, at the petition of the assailant did not review the suit, or if it did, it was in secret session, and at that time declared it did not deserve to continue, since McKenzie never was taken nor suspended from his office:

“I do not transmit any data regarding the very grave wounds of Zambrano, nor their classification, since, according to what the judge informs me, this is done only in case of death.”

I transfer this to you with reference to my note, No. 369, of February 3 last, transmitting the inclosures that are mentioned, in order that you may present to the State Department of that country the petitions which correspond in the form most expedient in your judgment; having to call the attention of the same Department upon those points that the invesigation of the punishable act of the ranger, McKenzie, makes necessary, the punishment of the guilty, and the indemnification of Zambrano, if it shall result, as is to be presumed granted that there was committed against his person an offense of which an agent of authority may be responsible.

I renew, etc.,

Mariscal.
  1. Not printed.