SAN ANTONIO — On Tuesday, the Tap Pilam Coahuiltecan Nation held its fifth rally in a series of meetings to educate the community about preserving history at the Alamo.
In a release sent to KENS 5 this week, the Tap Pilam Coahuiltecan Nation said it filed a civil rights action suit against Alamo Trust Inc., its CEO, Douglass W. McDonald, Texas General Land Office and commissioner George P. Bush, the Texas Historical Commission, and the City of San Antonio. The suit alleges that the defendants purposefully disregarded human remains protocols or "selectively applied and interpreted federal laws, not applicable to the project by their own admission, in a manner that only grants access to federally recognized Indian tribes and ignores other federal laws and the City of San Antonio's Unified Development Code."
Ramon Vasquez, the executive officer of the group, said, "For us, the most important has been the protection and the preservation of the cemetery there. It's the first catholic cemetery in the City of San Antonio. It was established in the early 1700's for the first Native Americans families, for the first Spanish settler families with African heritage and later on after the Battle of the Alamo some of the Alamo Defenders."
In a previous article, the city attorney sent a statement to KENS 5 saying the project will have the necessary permits to preserve and protect burials on site but could not comment more due to the pending lawsuit.