Newly released 911 transcripts concerning an incident that took place on a Texas highway last October, involving a Biden campaign bus and a caravan of Trump supporters, is finally making its way through the court system.
The incident at the time made national news during the final days of the 2020 campaign. Supporters of the former president decided to “escort” a Biden campaign bus on a stretch of highway in central Texas, which apparently freaked out the occupants within the bus.
The multiple lawsuits filed claim that Trump supporters, of the then president, surrounded and harassed those within the bus fearing for their safety. The Biden team also claims that they called 911 multiple times asking for assistance from the San Marcos police department, which was initially ignored.
Democratic campaign workers riding in the bus can be heard on the 911 transcript alleging that motorists within the Trump caravan, known as a “Trump Train”, were “driving dangerously close to the Biden bus.”
According to the amended federal lawsuit filed late Friday afternoon; “San Marcos refused to help,” leaving the passengers within the bus on their own.
Along with the newly released 911 transcripts, audio recordings and documents regarding behind-the-scene communications between law enforcement and dispatchers were also included in the amended lawsuit.
The new filings claim that several police officers “joked about the victims and their distress.”
In one exchange, San Marcos police officer, Matthew Daenzer, refuses to provide an escort when suggested by another police department.
The 911 dispatcher in San Marcos, according to the lawsuit, puts the New Braunfels dispatcher and the Biden campaign staffer who was pleading for assistance on hold and called Daenzer, the police supervisor on duty.
“I am so annoyed at New Braunfels for doing this to us,” the dispatcher tells Daenzer, who answered the call and began laughing, according to the transcribed recording in the filing. “They have their officers escorting this Biden bus, essentially, and the Trump Train is cutting in between vehicles and driving, being aggressive and slowing them down to like 20 or 30 miles per hour. And they want you guys to respond to help.”
“No, we’re not going to do it,” Daenzer tells a 911 dispatcher, according to the amended filing.
Adding; “We will ‘close patrol’ that, but we’re not going to escort a bus.”
During a 2020 Texas highway confrontation between a “Trump Train” and a Biden campaign bus, Democrats asked San Marcos police for an escort. A lawsuit says officers dismissed the requests and “joked about the victims and their distress.” https://t.co/s2zfxPDpKg
— Texas Tribune (@TexasTribune) October 30, 2021
Then-president Trump retweeted a video of the traffic event from his now-banned Twitter account and wrote, “I LOVE TEXAS.”
The amended complaint within the lawsuit against police officials in San Marcos also contends that Biden supporters alerted city police. They informed them that the Biden bus was being followed by Trump supporters as it traveled to a scheduled campaign stop at Texas State University in San Marcos.
At which point the public safety director stated that the San Marcos police department would send a backup vehicle, however, no escort.
Former state Senator Wendy Davis, who was running at the time for Congress, is one of the 4 plaintiffs in the lawsuit. The new filing expands the number of individuals being sued including Police Officer Daenzer, San Marcos assistant police Chief Brandon Winkenwerder, along with the city itself. A spokesperson for the city did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Friday.
The incident made national news just a month before the November election. At least one minor traffic mishap, along with three Biden events, were forced to cancel in Central Texas because of alleged “safety concerns” claimed by Texas Democrats.
The FBI continues to investigate the incident according to a law enforcement official familiar with the investigation.