2019 in Texas

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See also:	History of Texas Historical outline of Texas List of years in Texas 2019 in the United States

The following is a list of events of the year 2019 in Texas .

Incumbents

State government

• Governor: Greg Abbott (R)
• Lieutenant Governor: Dan Patrick (R)
• Attorney General: Ken Paxton (R)
• Comptroller: Glenn Hegar (R)
• Land Commissioner: George P. Bush (R)
• Agriculture Commissioner: Sid Miller (R)
• Railroad Commissioners: Christi Craddick (R), Wayne Christian (R), and Ryan Sitton (R)

City governments

• Mayor of Houston: Sylvester Turner (D)
• Mayor of San Antonio: Ron Nirenberg (I)
• Mayor of Dallas: Eric Johnson (R)
• Mayor of Austin: Steve Adler (D)
• Mayor of Fort Worth: Betsy Price (R) (until 15 July), Mattie Parker (R) (starting 15 July)
• Mayor of El Paso: Dee Margo (R)
• Mayor of Arlington: Jim Ross (N/A)
• Mayor of Corpus Christi: Joe McComb
• Mayor of Plano: Harry LaRosiliere (R)
• Mayor of Lubbock: Daniel Manning Pope (R)

Events

• January 3 – A man shoots three children to death and wounds a woman in Texas City. ^[1]
• January 23 – Blue Origin successfully launches its New Shepard 3 rocket and completes the tenth sub-orbital test flight, reaching an altitude of 106.9 km (351,000 ft), carrying its crew capsule and making a controlled upright landing in West Texas. ^[2]
• January 28 – Pecan Park raid: Texas Police shoot and kill two homeowners after invading their house. 5 officers were injured in a substantial shootout in Harris County near Houston. Reports later indicated one of the officers lied that drugs were in the house. ^[3]
• March 14 – former U.S. representative Beto O'Rourke announces he is running for the Democratic Party's nomination for President of the United States in the 2020 election. ^[4]
• April 24 – John William King is executed by lethal injection by the state of Texas, 21 years after the murder of James Byrd Jr., for which he was sentenced. ^[5]
• April 25 –
  • Tornadoes spawned by severe weather in Texas and Louisiana cause at least five deaths and over 17,000 power outages. ^[6]
  • A Texas semi truck driver with no criminal record is arrested and faces 4 counts of vehicular homicide after he told police his brakes were failing on I-70 as it descended from the mountains in Colorado and caused a 28 vehicle crash. ^[7]
• June 9 – At least one person is killed and six others are injured after a crane collapses onto an apartment building in Dallas amid severe weather. ^[8]
• June 30 – Ten people are killed when a Beechcraft BE-350 King Air crashes into a hangar at Addison Airport in Addison. ^[9]
• July 13 – U.S. Vice President Mike Pence says the conditions under which asylum seekers are being held in facilities along the U.S. border with Mexico are unacceptable, after visiting two federal detention centers in Texas, remaining the highest-ranking member of the Trump administration to say so. He calls upon the U.S. Congress to act. ^[10]
• July 30 – Federal agents join the investigation of a fire that destroys a 125-year-old landmark Catholic Church of the Visitation in Westphalia. After storms destroyed two earlier church structures in the 1880s, the Church of Visitation was completed in February 1895 and dedicated on May 23, 1895. ^[11]
• July 31 – An explosion at an ExxonMobil oil refinery in Baytown hospitalizes 66 people. ^[12]
• August 3 – 2019 El Paso shooting: At least 22 people are killed and 24 others injured in a mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso. A suspect Patrick Crusius of Allen, was captured alive. The case is being investigated as domestic terrorism given that Patrick Crusius had posted a 4-page white nationalist manifesto titled The Inconvenient Truth on 8chan where he cited a supposed "Hispanic invasion of Texas" and "Simply trying to defend my country from cultural and ethnic replacement" as motivation for the shooting. The suspect was also inspired by Brenton Tarrant, the perpetrator of the Christchurch mosque shooting in New Zealand. ^[13]
• August 6 – Scientists at the Spring, Arch Mission Foundation confirm that tardigrades in a cryptobiotic state were added to the payload of the failed SpaceIL Beresheet lander that crashed on the Moon on 11 April 2019, and may have survived the crash. ^[14]
• August 20 – The Texas Department of Information Resources reports that the computer systems of 23 towns in the state were hit by a ransomware attack on August 16. "One single threat actor" is suspected. ^[15]
• August 31 – Midland–Odessa shootings: At least seven people are killed and 21 others wounded in a mass shooting in West Texas, between the cities of Midland and Odessa. The shooter is shot and killed in Odessa. ^[16]
• September 1 – New laws come into effect in the state of Texas that allow for less restrictions on the carrying of guns in "schools, places of worship, foster homes where children live and apartments". ^[17]
• September 3 – Walmart announces it will stop selling ammunition for handguns and some assault weapons in all of its American stores in response to a shooting that killed 22 and injured 24 at one of its El Paso, stores the month prior. It and Kroger also ask customers not to bring guns into the stores. ^[18]
• September 12 – The third major Democratic Party televised debate takes place at the Health and Physical Education Arena in Houston, with a focus on health care in the United States. ^[19]
• September 17 – Tropical Storm Imelda makes landfall in Texas, threatening severe flash flooding throughout Eastern Texas and the Houston area. ^[20]
• September 21 – Authorities in Texas report a fifth death from Tropical Storm Imelda. ^[21]
• October 12 – Killing of Atatiana Jefferson: In Fort Worth, a woman is shot dead in her bedroom by a policeman sent to check on her welfare. ^[22]
• October 14 – Aaron Dean, the Fort Worth police officer who shot a woman to death in her bedroom during what was intended to be a welfare check, resigns his position, and later that day is arrested and formally charged with murder in the case. ^[23]
• October 20 – Tornadoes strike North Texas as part of an outbreak. ^[24]
• October 27 – Two men die and ten others are injured in a mass shooting at a Halloween party in Greenville. ^[25]
• November 1 – Former Texas representative Beto O'Rourke drops out of the presidential primaries. ^[26]
• November 27 – A chemical plant producing butadiene in Port Neches explodes and burns. It damages thousands of buildings over several square miles and sending three workers to the hospital. ^[27]
• December 1 – Three people are killed in a plane crash in San Antonio. ^[28]
• December 29 – West Freeway Church of Christ shooting: A man kills two people and injures another at a church in White Settlement before being killed by a security guard and a civilian. ^[29]

See also

• 2019 in the United States

References

1. Lam, Kristin. "Texas man turns himself in after three children found dead". USA TODAY. Retrieved 2024-09-27.
2. Bergin, Chris (2019-01-23). "Blue Origin conducts New Shepard's 10th test flight". NASASpaceFlight.com. Retrieved 2024-09-27.
3. "Houston police embroiled in scandal after 'lies' found in no-knock warrant that led to fatal raid on alleged drug house". ABC News. Retrieved 2024-09-27.
4. "US election 2020: Beto O'Rourke launches presidential bid". 2019-03-14. Retrieved 2024-09-27.
5. "White supremacist executed in Texas for dragging death of black man". Reuters . April 24, 2024.
6. Rice, Doyle. "Violent storms, floods, tornadoes leave 5 dead in South". USA TODAY. Retrieved 2024-09-27.
7. "Prosecutor: Rogel Aguilera-Mederos Showed 'Extreme Indifference' To Human Life - CBS Colorado". www.cbsnews.com. 2019-05-05. Retrieved 2024-09-27.
8. "Crane collapse over apartments kills 1, injures several other in Dallas | abc13.com". abc13.com. Retrieved 2024-09-27.
9. "10 dead in small-plane crash in Texas". NBC News. 2019-07-01. Retrieved 2024-09-27.
10. Brown, Betsy Klein,Pamela (2019-07-13). "Pence: Border facility conditions are unacceptable | CNN Politics". CNN. Retrieved 2024-09-27.
11. "Nearly 125 Years Old, Westphalia's Church Of The Visitation Lives On After Fire". KERA News. 2019-08-02. Retrieved 2024-09-27.
12. "66 people sent for medical attention after ExxonMobil refinery explosion in Texas". NBC News. 2019-08-01. Retrieved 2024-09-27.
13. Vera, Christina Maxouris,Nicole Chavez,Eric Levenson,Amir (2019-08-05). "El Paso vigils bring together a city in mourning after mass shooting". CNN. Retrieved 2024-09-27.
14. "Tardigrades are now on the moon thanks to a crashed Israeli spacecraft". CNET. Retrieved 2024-09-27.
15. Villas-Boas, Antonio. "23 towns in Texas were hit by possibly the largest-ever ransomware attack, in what could be the first coordinated cyberattack of its kind". Business Insider. Retrieved 2024-09-27.
16. "Texas shooting rampage leaves seven dead". 2019-08-31. Retrieved 2024-09-27.
17. "New Texas laws loosening gun restrictions draw outrage from critics after Odessa shooting". NBC News. 2019-09-01. Retrieved 2024-09-27.
18. "Walmart halts ammunition sales for assault-style rifles; Kroger calls for gun safety". Reuters . September 3, 2024.
19. "Democratic debate: Biden, Warren and Sanders spar over healthcare". BBC News. 2019-09-13. Retrieved 2024-09-27.
20. "Houston Braces up". The Washington Post .
21. independent, Associated Press The Associated Press is an; City, not-for-profit news cooperative headquartered in New York (2019-09-22). "Death in Texas is fifth attributed to Tropical Storm Imelda". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2024-09-27.
22. "Woman shot dead by Texas police through bedroom window". 2019-10-13. Retrieved 2024-09-27.
23. Norman, Greg (2019-10-14). "Fort Worth police officer jailed on murder charge after resigning in shooting that killed woman in home". Fox News. Retrieved 2024-09-27.
24. Riess, Christina Maxouris,Rebekah (2019-10-21). "A powerful tornado churned through northern Dallas, knocking out power and leaving damage in its wake". CNN. Retrieved 2024-09-27.
25. "2 Killed as Gunman Opens Fire on Hundreds at Halloween Party in Greenville". NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth. 2019-10-27. Retrieved 2024-09-27.
26. Collins, Sean (2019-11-01). "Beto O'Rourke drops out of the 2020 Democratic primary". Vox. Retrieved 2024-09-27.
27. Douglas, Erin (2022-12-20). "Federal report identifies cause of 2019 Port Neches chemical plant explosion". The Texas Tribune. Retrieved 2024-09-27.
28. Vera, Amir (2019-12-02). "3 dead after a plane crashes during an emergency landing in San Antonio". CNN. Retrieved 2024-09-27.
29. "Texas church shooting: Two fatally shot before gunman killed by churchgoer". 2019-12-29. Retrieved 2024-09-27.