[Inclosure.—Translation]
Señor Mariscal
to Señor de Azpíroz.
Office of Secretary of State and Foreign
Relations,
Mexico, September 8,
1904.
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
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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.,
