On June 22, a hot summer day, a group of 10 family members and friends were wrapping up a tubing trip on the San Marcos River at Don’s Fish Camp in the Central Texas town of Martindale when they were violently attacked by members or supporters of a neo-Nazi prison gang, according to eyewitness videos, interviews with victims, and publicly available records, photos, and other information.
The group of family and friends included three members who were not white, according to interviews, and they were there to celebrate a birthday—something they had done many times in the past. The physical attack apparently began, video shows, after a brief verbal altercation. Several of the victims, who requested not to be named due to serious safety concerns, said that at least one member of the neo-Nazi group referred to a mixed-race teenager, the son of the woman whose birthday was being celebrated, as “Tarzan” after he went to use a rope swing, which the victim group understood as a racial epithet.
The birthday group had just finished tubing on the river—a favorite Texas pastime in the summer heat—before the physical attack, which included punching and shoving, left at least two members of their group injured. In video recorded of the incident, someone can be heard yelling “white power.”
