Beginning in 1979, the first all-Latino homicide unit was formed in Houston, Texas. The team was made up of a team of bilingual, Mexican American rookie police officers who were promoted to the rank of detective and tasked with tackling the city’s high Latino homicide rate. The local media dubbed the homicide unit The Chicano Squad.
On September 2 and 3 at 9 p.m. EST, the two-part docuseries, The Chicano Squad, will premiere on A&E and tell the story of the Latino detectives inside the unit. According to a press release from A&E, “these men … for the next three decades would earn the trust of the community and the department, becoming one of the most highly decorated law enforcement units in the history of Houston.”
The Chicano Squad is told through interviews with the original squad members, including Jim Montero, José Selvera, Raymond Gonzales, U.P. Hernández, and Cecil Mosqueda. In the trailer for the docuseries, one of the former members of the squad admits that the police department “threw us out there” with no experience. Another says, “We couldn’t believe what we were seeing.”
Once the squad was formed, they were given 90 days to solve all open Latin murder cases, 52 total cases with no leads. They were able to close 80 percent of the cases and the squad continued their work with the Houston Police Department for another three decades.
This isn’t the first time the story of The Chicano Squad has been told. In 2021, actress, writer and advocate Cristela Alonzo (Cristela), hosted the podcast, Chicano Squad.