The case has generated conflicting versions of what happened on Sunday, February 26.
What is known is that five of the seven young people who were traveling at dawn in a van in Nuevo Laredo, a border city in the state of Tamaulipas, in northern Mexico, died after Army troops fired at them.
Mexico’s Secretary of National Defense (Sedena) admitted on Tuesday that its staff “activated his firearms” against the vehicle. He said the staff fired “on hearing a crash.”
For their part, human rights organizations point out that, according to the first versions, the military fired without prior warning and insist that the youths were not armed.
“By a Rumble”
The Sedena statement indicates that at approximately 4:50 am the military personnel deployed in Nuevo Laredo were conducting reconnaissance in the area “when they heard gunshots, putting themselves on alert, advancing in the direction where they were heard.”
“Later, they visualized a pick-up type vehicle with seven individuals on board, which was moving at excessive speed, with its lights off and without license plates.”
It adds that the youths, “on observing the presence of the troops, accelerated speed in an unexpected and evasive manner” and that they collided with a parked vehicle.
“Hearing a rumble, military personnel fired his firearms”says the statement.
Five of the seven youths died in the event, one was admitted to a hospital with serious injuries and another survived apparently unharmed.
The Sedena indicates that investigations of the events are currently being carried out with “various authorities”, including the Mexican Attorney General’s Office (FGR).
The Ministry of National Defense did not indicate how or where it fired at the truck.
It also did not report whether weapons were found in the vehicle.
But the survivor of the event that occurred on Sunday, Alejandro Pérez Benítez, whose brother Gustavo is one of the five killed, indicated that elements of the army they were “shot directly”.
In an interview with the N+ news platform, Pérez Benítez recounted that they were traveling in the truck, after spending the night in a nightclub, when they were approached by the military elements.
“They shoot straight through the windows, firing point blank at us. I got on my knees telling them that we were not criminals, but they ignored what I was saying,” Pérez Benítez said.
He also reported that “he managed to see” how two of the five fatalities, including his brother, were killed “when they were subdued on the floor”.
The complaints
The deaths of the five youths were confirmed on Monday by the Nuevo Laredo Human Rights Committee, which reported that the relatives of the victims filed complaints against the military personnel, including three for homicide.
“Through the families that have approached to identify the bodies and present the corresponding complaints, we have five deaths and one survivor, four complaints against military personnel, three for homicide and one for injury to a survivor,” said Raymundo Ramos. Vázquez, president of the Nuevo Laredo Human Rights Committee.
In an interview with journalist Joaquín López Dóriga, Ramos Vázquez indicated that, according to witness testimonies and evidence collected in videos, when leaving the nightclub the young people “met four military vehicles.”
“What we know from the survivor is that the military they fired into the cabin without warning, no aggression involved and, obviously, without the military being at risk,” said Ramos Vázquez.
Some of the testimonies collected by the Human Rights Committee corroborate the statement of the survivor, Alejandro Pérez Benítez, about the two wounded young men who “were deprived of their lives with a shot to the neck.”
Regarding the version of the Secretary of Defense that the young people, upon seeing the soldiers, “accelerated untimely”, Ramos Vázquez indicated that this information should be made known with the videos of the cameras installed in the Army units.
But in addition, he stresses, the Army has a special protocol What to follow in cases like this.
“There is a protocol for the use of force. That protocol marks five warnings before shooting to kill. One of the warnings is to identify yourself as a member of the Armed Forces, the other is, in case of aggression, shoot at the tires; a third is to immobilize the vehicles and later warning shots,” said the president of the Human Rights Committee.
And he added that only when “there is an attack involved are shots fired in defense of life.”
Alejandro Pérez Benítez assures that none of the youths carried weapons therefore, none of them fired previously against the elements of the Army.
In addition to the Nuevo Laredo Human Rights Committee, other human rights organizations, such as the Prodh Center, the Fundar organization, and Human Rights Watch are also demanding that the facts be investigated.
The “militarization” controversy from Mexico
The events on Sunday occur in the midst of a growing controversy over the “militarization” policies of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
In recent months, the president has assigned to the Armed Forces each time more public safety tasks.
Critics say the military is not trained to deal with civilians within a citizen security approach.
“The military are not trained to be in the streets despite the fact that we have been with them for years… and these types of events will continue to occur,” the director of the National Citizen Observatory, Francisco Rivas, told El Universal.
“They are not prepared for that; the Armed Forces are prepared for something else, no matter how much we keep insisting… If we are going to misuse the military, the elements will malfunction“, he added.
On Wednesday, President López Obrador declared that the Sedena authorities “are already helping in the investigation” of the events on Sunday.
And he assured that if the military “are found to be responsible, they will be punished.”
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