On Oct. 20, 2020, a Biden-Harris campaign bus traveling to a Texas campaign event was intercepted, boxed in, and aggressively harassed by vehicles flying Trump flags (shown in video below).
A nearby police department refused to respond to the bus occupants’ desperate 911 calls; the city of San Marcos eventually settled a lawsuit for $175,000 divided among the four bus occupants (see that story here).
They also sued the “Trump train” drivers, and on Monday, September 23, 2024 — nearly 4 years after the incident — a federal jury ordered Eliazar Cisneros (photo, left), one of those drivers, to pay the bus driver $10,000 of compensation, and assessed him for $30,000 of punitive damages to be shared by all four bus occupants (read story here).
Cisneros organized the harassment, and the verdict against him “marks the first time in the modern era” a jury has imposed liability under the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 for interfering with political activity by intimidation, threats, or violence.
Robert and Joeylynn Mesaros (photo, right), participants in the incident, complained about being sued. “We felt like we’ve been hunted like prey, and … we’re just ready to feel like normal people again.” This is strange, considering they hunted the bus riders like prey, and normal people don’t act like them.
During the trial, it also came out that Robert Mesaros had said he would “run (the plaintiffs) out of Texas again” if given a chance. That’s not a normal person talking. Although the jury didn’t hold them liable, the Mesaros say the lawsuit forced them to spend $300,000 on legal bills and miss time with their 14-year-old son. Cue the violins.
I’ll never celebrate parents missing time with their children, but they deserve to suffer a severe financial penalty for terrorizing strangers over political differences of opinion.