Texas executes member of infamous escapee group
HUNTSVILLE, Texas — A member of the notorious “Texas 7” gang of escaped prisoners was executed Tuesday evening for the fatal shooting of a suburban Dallas police officer during a Christmas Eve robbery in 2000.
Joseph Garcia received a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville for the shooting death of 29-year-old Irving police officer Aubrey Hawkins.
Asked by the warden if he had a final statement, Garcia replied: “Yes, sir.”
“Dear heavenly Father, please forgive them, for they know not what they do,” Garcia said.
He then paused, for nearly a minute, before speaking again as the muffled revving of motorcycles outside the prison ridden by a group of bikers who support police could be heard inside the death chamber.
“To some of you,” Garcia said, pausing again as the lethal dose of the sedative pentobarbital apparently had already started.
“They’ve already started, and I ain’t even finished,” he said.
He gasped three times and snored twice before all movement stopped. He was pronounced dead at
6:43 p.m.
Garcia, 47, became the 22nd inmate put to death this year in the U.S. and the 12th given lethal injection in Texas.
Garcia, who was serving a 50-year sentence for murder, was among a group of inmates who escaped from a South Texas prison that month and committed numerous robberies, including the one in which they shot Hawkins 11 times, killing him.
The escaped inmates were eventually arrested in Colorado, ending a six-week manhunt.
One of the escaped inmates killed himself as officers closed in. The other six were convicted of killing Hawkins and sentenced to death.
Garcia was the fourth of the group put to death. Two others remain on death row.