Woman witnesses teen daughter killed by army, one of 22 who were killed after surrendering

A woman said she witnessed when Mexican soldiers shot and killed her 15 year old daughter, after a confrontation with suspected criminals, even though the unarmed teenager lay wounded on the ground.

The mother said that 20 other youths were also killed by soldiers in Tlatlaya, State of Mexico, near the border with Guerrero, after they had surrendered and were unarmed. 

The woman spoke to The Associated Press last weekend but did not want to be identified for fear of reprisals. The army had not responded to the accusations on Thursday.

The Mexican government has kept the story quiet, reporting that all were killed during a shootout,  in the early hours of June 30.

The Mexican government has maintained that those killed on the early morning of June 30 died in a fierce shootout with security forces, a version that raised questions because government troops suffered only one wounded, and physical evidence at the scene pointed toward more targeted killings 

The witness said the army fired first at the armed group, which was in a warehouse that stored grains. She said a gunman was killed in the initial shooting and another gunman, alleged member of the drug gang, and her teen daughter were injured.

They surrendered after assurances

The rest of the men surrendered with the promise that their physical integrity would be respected, said the witness who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

After the surrender, teen Erika Gómez González, lying prone on the ground, because of a bullet impact to her knee.  The soldiers turned her body over, seeing she was still alive, and then shot her a half dozen more times in the chest, before turning her face down once again.

Then the man wounded in the initial shooting, who lay beside Erika, suffered the same fate, according to the witness.

The soldiers interrogated the remaining people in front of the warehouse, and then took them inside one at a time, said the witness. From where I was watching, just outside the warehouse, the witness heard the shots and groans of the dying.

Little evidence of a shootout

A week after the death of the 22, reporters from The Associated Press visited and took pictures of the warehouse where the bodies were found and found little evidence that a prolonged shooting had occurred. There were few marking  of shots and no caps as one would typically expect to see in a shootout where 22 people were killed.

At least five points of the interior walls showed the same pattern: one or two bullet marks surrounded by a splatter of blood, giving the appearance that most of the victims were made to stand against the wall, when receive one or two shots, execution style.  

Version of the government

After the AP story broke, the Attorney General of Mexico issued a statement in which he said that "there is no indication of an execution" and evidence was present of  crossfire.

As or the state government, they refused to release the autopsy reports to AP, after a request for information was brought, protected by the Mexican transparency law, and reclassified the  documents to the category of state classified information.  They will remain sealed for the next nine years.

Faced with a similar request in July, the Attorney General's Office then said there were no autopsies.

Interviewed separately, relatives of three other victims and a physician who saw the body of Erika said they saw the wounds were consistent with the account of the mother of the teenager regarding the way she was killed. She had said that the soldiers shot to incapacitate suspected criminals first and then shot them in the chest to kill them.  All of the 22 were killed by multiple gunshots to the chest.

The death certificate of Erika, who was seen by AP reporters, confirmed that the girl died on June 30, 2014 in San Pedro Limon, where the killings took place, death was from gunshots. The certificate does not offer details about the ballistic or the type of weapon used.

On the two tombstones of deceased brothers, Marcos Burgos Salgado, 20, Juan Salgado José Burgos, 18, recorded as the date of death June 30.

A person in the nearby town of Ixcapuzalco, said his older brother was part of the killings and the number was 22.  


Note:  The number of 22 is correct, at the time of the killings, on July 1, authorities released this "22 suspected criminals killed yesterday by the Department of Defense.3 women, kidnapping victims, were rescued"-  In a press release, the headquarters of Military Zone 22 of the Secretariat of National Defense (Department of Defense) announced that 22 people were killed, 1 woman and 21 men,  during a clash with an armed group near the village Cuadrilla Nueva, in the town of Tlatlaya;


The Department of Defense reported that "were released three women who said they were deprived of their liberty by the armed group." in other reports they referred to the 22 as dangerous sicarios (hit-men).

The shooting was initiated by the army

The mother of Erika reports the shooting on June 30 was initiated by the military, in violation of their own rules of engagement, which  only allow troops to fire on armed civilians only if they shoot first or if the life of military personnel or civilians are at risk.

The Ministry of Defense did not respond to a request for comment on the accusations of family.

The Attorney General's Office said there is an open investigation into the incident, but so far has found no evidence to corroborate the statements of the witness, whose version was first reported by,  Esquire Latin America.

The mother spoke a few days ago in anger over the death of her daughter and still exhibiting signs of trauma and shock. He said he spent a sleepless night sitting on a pile of bricks when she came to the community on June 29 to try to take her daughter who had escaped.

She said she spent a sleepless night sitting on a pile of bricks on June 29 the day before the shooting, arriving to retrieve her runaway daughter. 

The girl recently became involved with the wrong crowd, she said. The group had traveled from the town of Arcelia in Guerrero state to nearby San Pedro Limon in three pickups with guns. All were teenagers or in their early 20s. Little is known about what the gang was doing or had been doing in the days before the shootings. 

Local officials said Arcelia is controlled by the La Familia Michoacán cartel,  which was displaced from  Michoacán state, where it was founded and now controls parts of the impoverished Tierra Caliente, or hot land, in neighboring Guerrero. The local head of the organization known as "El Pez",  who controlled areas between San Pedro and Arcelia Limón, located in an area known as Tierra Caliente.


Note: -La Prensa and other media in the region reported the day after the killings they were a gang who worked for "Gue­rre­ros Uni­dos"-

Drug trafficking and conflicts with the military have occurred there for decades. Some farmers grow and traffic marijuana and poppies for opium, and violence is common. 

Recently, supporters of the gang blocked roads and burned four Coca Cola trucks, leading the soft drink company to close  its distribution center in Arcelia. Local journalists say they have been threatened for publishing stories the drug cartel didn't like.

Reporters under surveillance from “both sides” the issue

There is no clarity on why the AP was allowed to report and investigate  freely in the area. because the story is not favorable to the army.  But members of the criminal gang apparently closely monitored the AP journalists when they visited the region.

During the interview with the mother of a girl who was found dead, while she was being interviewed in a parking lot,  a young man appeared at the site, he leaned against a pickup truck and stood staring at reporters until they left the scene.

While the AP reporters were in the region,  members of the Mexican navy followed them, took photographs of them and their identifications and interviewed them.

Recalling the morning of her daughter's death, the mother said confusion broke out inside the warehouse before dawn when one of the young gunmen appeared, shouting, "They're on us!" 

Troops from the Mexican army's 22nd military zone were on patrol. Soldiers trained a spotlight on the warehouse and opened fire on those inside, she said. 

After the initial exchange of gunfire, soldiers shouted to those inside, saying would respect their lives, and would not harm them, if they surrendered. They walked out with their hands on the back of their necks, she said. 

The soldiers took the witness, two other women and two young men who said they were  kidnap victims to a semi-enclosed room at one side of the entrance to the warehouse. 

From there, under soldiers' custody, the woman could only catch glimpses of what was happening inside 

"I was afraid to see too much," she said, noting some of the detainees were shot standing, some were kneeling. 

After a couple of hours, the two men who had claimed to be kidnap victim were separated from the three women, taken off by soldiers and shot, apparently because they did not believe their claims, she said. 

The army said in its initial press release that soldiers rescued three women who were kidnap victims. The mother says she was one of three women taken by the army to the Mexico state capital, Toluca, and turned over to a state prosecutors' agent. The other two women were promptly arrested and are still in custody. 

The mother said she was photographed next to the guns confiscated from the gang and told she too would be arrested if she didn't cooperate with authorities and confirm their version of events. She said she did not know the agent's name, but described her as a tall woman with short cropped hair who was constantly holding a cigarette. She was later taken to the federal attorney general's organized crime unit in Mexico City, and finally released with no charges.

 

Human Rights Watch-became involved

1. Will the unexplained deaths of 22 people in the State of Mexico the beginning of a period of terror against the civilian population ?,  asks  Human Rights Watch  Organization to resume  its investigation, to determine if the   confrontation  on June 30 among a large group of alleged criminals and Mexican Army troops.

2.-The official version, embodied in a statement that does not exist on the website of the Ministry of National Defense (Department of Defense), stated, according to news agencies, that "military personnel on a tour in a community Tlatlaya, a municipality in the southern state of Mexico when located a warehouse guarded by armed men who attacked the soldiers.

"The agency added that repelled the attack that left 21 males dead and one female, and a wounded soldier. Three women were released who said they had been kidnapped.

"The military claims to have seized 25 rifles. 13 short, one fragmentation Granada and 112 chargers after confrontation. "

3.  Human Rights Watch  addressed the issue in a lengthy statement dated August 22 , which first insists that the Mexican government to investigate what happened in Tlatlaya, State of Mexico, and that the investigation is fair and effective.

In short, the official version is insufficient and does not involve any real research  to the  possibility  the Mexican Army killings was  not as the result of a confrontation.

"Almost two months have passed since a group of soldiers killed 22 civilians in Tlatlaya, and there are still more questions than answers about what really happened that day," said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch .

"There must - and is required by law - to carryout a comprehensive, objective and independent investigation to analyze whether the soldiers acted lawfully, and that valued ​​evidence  suggests that the authorities had acted improperly," reads a statement of the HRW.

"The use of force must only be considered in "self-defense" when its purpose is to repel "a real aggression or the threat". "To formally recognize these principles into new legislation is not enough," said Vivanco. "Now the government must demonstrate that Peña Nieto proposes to seriously ensure that these principles are respected by the military, and investigate thoroughly, cases where it is suspected that they have not."

4. Versions of the Department of Defense and the Mexican governor  Eruviel Ávila  argues that the military were attacked while they were patrolling near a winery.

However, the research establishes by AP reporters is that the bodies of 22 people were inside the warehouse, showing shots at close range, that blood stains and splatters  all happened inside and not around the warehouse and there was no sign that there was  shootout between civilians and military.

5. Recalling that the Office of the United Nations Human Rights (OHCHR) High Commissioner also visited the site and documented the case, HRW said "Associated Press reported that two members had said that OHCHR found no signs of stray bullets as they should have if they had left the soldiers fired their automatic weapons from a distance. "

6.  Human Rights Watch, an American organization that enjoys high international prestige and has repeatedly pointed out the excesses of military, marine and  handling the case and takes it to a level that the government of  Enrique Peña Nieto  can no longer ignore.

The matter escalated from a couple of official versions to a disturbing investigative report and finally the delivery of  Human Rights Watch  declaration  asking the federal government to stop turning a blind eye to what happened and take action on the matter.

Peña Nieto and colleagues should abandon the party and set aside the happy and patriotic image of armed forces which are a far cry from  the requirement of respect for human rights.

Sources: Esquire Latin America, La Prensa, Animal Politico-La Silla Rota