Former state Sen. Wendy Davis and others are suing the San Marcos Police Department for allegedly failing to provide them with protection during an October incident in which Trump supporters swarmed a Biden-Harris bus on Interstate 35 while it was driving through San Marcos.
Davis and others named in the lawsuit — including a volunteer, a campaign staffer and a bus driver — described the incident as an act of intimidation and said they were “failed by the very officials charged with upholding both their safety and their foundational democratic rights,” according to the lawsuit.
The suit says a supporter of the Biden-Harris campaign called San Marcos public safety director Chase Stapp in the days leading up to the Hays County tour to state that they were worried about possible harassment during the visit. One of those stops included a campaign event at Texas State University.
On Oct. 30, video taken by people who were driving by shows that several vehicles carrying pro-Trump flags clustered around the campaign bus as it drove down I-35. Staffers traveling in the bus called authorities and made requests for a police escort through San Marcos, the lawsuit says.
“Despite repeated calls for help, they refused or failed to respond when dozens of individuals in at least forty vehicles formed a self-labeled vehicular ‘Trump Train’ with the express purpose of terrorizing and intimidating a group campaigning for then-Democratic Presidential and Vice Presidential Candidates Joseph R. Biden and Kamala Harris,” the lawsuit reads.
San Marcos officials did not comment on the lawsuit Thursday citing the ongoing litigation.
The Texas Tribune reported that Davis and others have also sued seven people who were allegedly among the Trump supporters who surrounded the bus, saying the incident constituted a violation of the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, which prohibits obstructing federal elections or intimidating voters.
