Texas: Jury convicts SUV driver after fatal accident with eight dead

The man who hit and killed eight people with his SUV outside a migrant shelter on the US-Mexico border was found guilty by a jury in Texas on Friday.

George Alvarez, 35, allegedly lost control of his vehicle after running a red light on May 8, 2023, flipping his car on its side and hitting 18 people waiting at a bus stop in Brownsville, Texas.

He now faces a 60-year prison sentence after being found guilty of eight counts of manslaughter while intoxicated and ten counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

The jury’s decision came more than a year after the tragic incident in Brownsville, an active migration hub along the border. All of the crash victims were male, and several were from Venezuela.

After the incident, Alvarez attempted to flee the scene but was reportedly held back by several bystanders.

After the verdict was announced on Friday, he apologized to the victims’ families and said: “I am sorry from the bottom of my heart.”

During the trial, Alvarez admitted to being a lifelong cocaine addict. Although defense attorneys argued that test results at the time of the incident showed only trace amounts of the drug, the jury concluded based on the evidence that he was drunk at the time of the crime.

Maria Rodriguez Sangroni, whose 18-year-old son Cristian Jesus was killed in the crash, said the 60-year sentence was appropriate but she did not accept Alvarez’s apology.

“He will have to pay God’s punishment. No one is safe from that, no one,” she said. “This is a mild punishment for what awaits him with God. He will have to give an account to God.”

With News Wire Services