State Keeps Public in Dark on Details
as Texas Troop Body Pulled from River

Capitol Inside
April 25, 2022

The Texas Military Department continued to conceal critical details from the public on Monday when it announced that the body of National Guard Specialist Bishop E. Evans had been discovered in the Rio Grande in Eagle Pass after searching the waters and surrounding area for the past four days.

A 22-year-old artilleryman who supported U.S. special operation forces in Kuwait two years ago, Evans had been presumed to be dead since disappearing early Friday morning in an apparent attempt to rescue two migrants who appeared to be drowning. But the TMD that Governor Greg Abbott controls has yet to disclose the events that led to the young veteran's drowning in the river where it separates Eagle Pass from the Mexican border city of Piedras Negras.

No one outside the state military and police knows whether Evans dove into the river and never resurfaced. Neither the TMD or the Department of Public Safety have reported whether Evans started swimming and suddenly disappeared or struggled as though he might be having trouble staying afloat before his final submergence.

Did any of Evans' fellow Operation Lone Star members enter the river in bids to help Evans? If the answer is none, then why not? Did any of the Natural Guard soldiers actually see Evans go under? Or did they watch from the north bank as Evans swam all the way to the migrants who he'd risked his life to save? What then?

The TMD issued one vague statement per day as the river disaster unfolded - contending on Saturday night that both migrants in the tragic river rescue were actually drug smugglers who were being held in U.S. Customs and Border Patrol custody. The federal agency had issued no information on the Evans' disappearance or the discovery of his body today.

Evans apparently was found near the southern edge of the river in Mexico. That could be due to the intensified strength of the river current downstream from a major dam that releases water for the irrigation of crops in the spring. But it also could be a sign that the soldier made it fairly far across the river before vanishing in the waters.

Could there have been a physical confrontation between Evans and the migrant pair he was trying to rescue? Abbott and his Operation Lone Star commanders would presumably be seeking to make hay of such a fact if it were true - especially after portraying the migrants in the saga as transnational narcotics traffickers.

"We are heartbroken to learn of the death of SPC Bishop E. Evans who was reported missing in Eagle Pass on Friday," Abbott said in an email this afternoon. "Our National Guard soldiers risk their lives every day to serve and protect others and we are eternally grateful for the way SPC Evans heroically served his state and country."

Abbott asked Texans to "join Cecilia and me in praying for the family and friends of SPC Evans as they grieve this heartbreaking loss."

The Texas adjutant general - Major General Tom Suelzer - praised Evans for his "selflessness" as a "heroic Soldier who put his life above others in service to our state and national security.”

But Evans' family members and friends will have many questions on why and how their son died and why the public has been kept in the dark up to now on pivotal details. The Evans family lawyers might want to know if anyone tried to save the soldier and other details about the incident that have been under wraps.

The injection of drug cartels into the story late on its second day could Evans' loved ones suspicious about possible embellishment for political gain.

The border patrol presumably will conduct its own probe into the Operation Lone Star casualty as the agency in charge of immigration enforcement on the southern border.