It was sometime after midnight on September 6, 2015 when two cars pulled into the Whataburger at 12140 Montwood. The fast-food joint is notorious for the ruckus created by the after-hours nightclub partiers who congregate there after the bars have closed. Because of the weekly weekend drunken disturbances, the hamburger joint is usually staffed with uniformed off-duty police officers to help keep order. On this particular night, two automobiles pulled into the parking lot. The car in the front had three passengers, two in the front seat and one in the back seat.
The lead vehicle suddenly stopped and tried to back up into a parking space. The trailing vehicle, honked at the car in front of it. At that point, a man jumped out of the front car and started to yell at the occupants of the car that had honked at them. The unidentified individual continued to aggressively yell at the trailing car while standing in front of it, impeding the driver from leaving the parking lot. The unknown individual was described as very aggressive.
The commotion caught the attention of the two uniformed police officers at the restaurant. They went outside and ordered everyone to leave the parking lot. The two occupants of the first car, from which the individual berating the occupants had existed from, also exited their car.
The two El Paso police officers ordered everyone to leave the parking lot. The female of the first car told one police officer that she was city representative Claudia Ordaz. The other occupant, of the first car, was identified as Vince Perez. Both were in the front seat of the car from which the unidentified male had existed to berate the occupants of the car that honked at them.
Ordaz, Perez and the unknown individual argued about the law with both police officers. At one point, one officer asked Vince Perez if he had been drinking. During the confrontation between the two police officers and Ordaz, Perez and the unknown individual, another individual showed up to the scene. It is unclear whether this new individual was another police officer there to assist or some other public official.
What we do know, at this point, is that the new individual briefly met with the police officers and then met with Ordaz, Perez and the third individual, who had been described as aggressive. After a discussion that lasted some minutes, Ordaz, Perez and their passenger, the aggressive individual, left the parking lot.
The person who had shown up later, then met with the police officers. After some time, the individual left and the police officers went back to their duties.
There is much more to this event, but today I wanted to give you the facts as I know them to be at the moment. Tomorrow, I am going to share with you what additional steps I have taken to gather more information for you as well as discuss how I came to learn about this incident. Obviously there is also the question of whether there was preferential treatment extended to Ordaz and Perez by the El Paso Police Department. Together, we’ll delve into this in the coming weeks as more information becomes available.