The three versions of a crime

Translated by Otis B Fly-Wheel for Borderland Beat from a Zetatijuana article

[ Subject Matter: Death of Juan Alberto Jáuregui Ruvalcaba
Recommendation: Read the original arrest report updated by BB reporter Tijuano]

Nine days after the assassination of the Policeman Juan Alberto Jauregui Ruvalcaba, executed on a bloody day between bands of narco traffickers, the motive and identity of the killer/s continue unknown, and the work of his work colleagues to find the guilty party, obstructed the path of the investigation rather than levelling it.

Reporter: Rosario Mosso Castro, Pictures by Jorge Duenes

The actions of the Municipal Police in the minutes following the assassination of Agent Juan Alberto Jauregui Ruvalcaba at 05:30 am on Wednesday the 20th of May in Tijuana, were put in doubt when they freed the alleged killer. In the after investigation, ZETA encountered three version of the events, and many inconsistencies:

* the crime scene had been manipulated

* a motorcyclists helmet was out of place

* blood stains incongruent with the scene

* the victim, a policeman, appears to have been driven and then executed

* the alleged perpetrator of the crime testing negative for the Rhodizonate Sodium test

* the alleged perpetrator of the crime, confessed to the crime, then later denounced the Police for torture

* testimony of the Municipal Police and Public Ministry were very different

As a result of the manipulation of the crime scene, the officials assassin, walked free.

Jaurequi was killed by gun fire opposite his house in the Fraccionamiento Mariano Matamoros. Minutes later it transpired that there was a witness that had seen the killer fleeing the scene of the crime.


The same morning, in a public act, the Secretary of Municipal Public Security, Alejandro Lares, confirmed the identity of the deceased and added: " Actions carried out to combat the criminals had lamentable consequences. Like all the cases, he was honorable and his family will receive all our support. Already we have a line of investigation to follow".

The following day,  the same Secretary sent out a bulletin: "Almost 12 hours after being made a victim, the Police Official Juan Gualberto Jauregui Rubalcaba, the killer allegedly responsible for the crime was detained", he referred to the capture of Hugo Alfonso Hernandez Flores, 21 years of age.

He included information about how he was captured:

"Circulating in the Calles Ignacio Allende laterally with Tlatelolco in the Fraccionamiento Mariano Matamoros in La Presa district they located Hernandez Flores who tried to flee but was intercepted, during a precautionary search was found a plastic bag with 15 wraps of Crystal Meth".

He assures in the communication:

" In the preventative interview with the witness, he recognized the same voice that he heard on the same day at around 05:00 in the morning had killed a person and led officers to the site where he committed the crime and also took them to the place where he had hidden he murder weapon".

The Public Ministry Version of events

Without doubt, the presentation of Hugo Alfonso Hernandez Flores before the Public Ministry was for the crime of narco trafficking, not for homicide.

Together with him, entered the Agency of the Public Ministry various youths with physical characteristics similar to Hernandez Flores, they were also detained in Mariano Matamoros.

Meanwhile Hernandez was waiting to be processed for narco trafficking, the homicide detectives approached him. It was late at night on the day of the assassination he was intoxicated, he told the Agents that the night before he had consumed four doses of crystal and a marijuana joint, and Rivotril, also that he had killed the Police officer.

He explained to them:

I came across the Policeman on a motorcycle and shot him in the base of the neck, a fat woman had contracted him with 10,000 dollars to kill the man, they had met the day before at a taco stand with another man, who was mostly bald with some blonde hair, it was here that they gave him the pistol.

The Ministry Agents perceived two things,: that the detained was intoxicated and that his story did not relate to events at the crime scene. He didn't have a motorbike, and the official was shot in the back, the body had fallen onto its front, but was found face up as if he had bowed and then been shot.

In addition, the experts report determined that he received the shot from the top down, with and entrance wound in the chest and an exit wound in the back not in the nape of the neck.

Apart from this, the alleged assassin had tested negative for the Sodium Rhodizanodo test( gunpowder residue), and his finger prints were not on the alleged murder weapon.

The Agents of the Ministry went to the taco stand where Hernandez said he met the woman and man that gave him the weapon, meanwhile the Municipal Police confirmed the presence of "El Pele", a friend of the alleged, the previous night.

But neither the owner or helper at the Taco stand recalled seeing Hernandez, who they know as " an addict that hangs around in the park".

Finally and after interrogations which were full of contradictions, Hernandez broke and said that he hadn't don't it. That he hadn't killed the Policeman, and that he had been tortured by the Municipals, and had been told what to say.

On the 25th of May, two days after liberating Hernandez, the Prosecutor informed that:


"That the Public Ministry had exhausted the 48 hour period, and during this time, and after making several inquiries, did not find sufficient evidence to bring a criminal complaint for the murder of the Police Agent". The preliminary investigation of the murder remains open.

The lines of investigation are personal and working.

In the initial investigations, they concluded that the murdered Agent was a violent man both inside and outside of work.

The Public Minister for drug trafficking, allocated Hernandez Flores for "the crime of possession of Methamphetamine for sale before the 7th Criminal Court, and this ended with the accused going free, on the grounds that the arrest was illegal", was the question put to Judge Rodolfo Lira Pedrin.

Hernandez assures that the police arrested him at his girlfriends house at 08:00 am, not in the street at the time mentioned in the Municipal Police report, he was driven by the Police through the city to the offices of Secretariat of Municipal Public Security in Zona Rio to take his photograph, fingerprints, there he was also fitted up with the reported 15 doses of crystal meth.

His Lawyer, Gabriel Celestino Hernandez recalls waiting for him, when 15 other youths similar to Hernandez arrived, they had been arrested in the same Colonia at the same time as Hernandez.

Hernandez version of events

Hugo Alfonso Hernandez Flores was freed on the night of the 23rd of May, and minutes after his Lawyer, who accompanied him in the last part of processing, presented him at a press conference. They denounced torture and reported that they would be filing a complaint before the Public Prosecutors Office of the human rights Ombudsman and another into Government Representatives Office.

On Sunday the 24th of May, Hernandez and his Lawyer presented themselves to the PGJE to denounce the torture of Hernandez, here is his version of events:

I was sleeping at 8 in the morning when Agents Pablo Quiroz Hernandez, Julio Cesar Oliva Rangel, and another 8 Municipal Policemen entered. Quiroz handcuffed him, slapped him and told him" already you fucked your mother because you are guilty of killing a Policeman". Hernandez denied it and they threw him down the stairs from the second floor where an agent dropped onto him.

They kept slapping and insulting him, they put him in the back of their pickup and took him to Calle Zempoala and showed him a photo and insisted that he had killed Jauregui. After they took him to the house of Jauregui and said that this was the place he had killed the officer.

In his view and ZETA expanded: "there were many people and nobody told me anything", and his girlfriend said she saw how and at what time he was taken, she added that before taking him away, other officers had been in the house, " they were looking for three boys who they said they saw escape" through our home.

In his denouncement Hernandez said that after the press conference, they didn't present him to the Judge Martin Armenta, and for an hour every Municipal Policeman that walked past him punched him the stomach.

Later they transferred him to the Municipal Offices in Zona Rio, where he was for half an hour while they entered his details, then they put the drugs on him. He said that then they took him to a bus station where they met homicide detectives, and he heard on the radio the order to take him to Teotihuacan street because they had found a gun they thought was the murder weapon.

When he arrived, they ordered him to take off his running shoes, which they compared to a foot print left by the alleged killer, and said "it does not match", said the accused.

At this point of the denunciation, the accused said that Quiroz put and plastic bag over his head, which they held round his neck and the other eight officers started to punch him in the stomach, and after a while of suffering this treatment, he started to accept what they said, saying " I'm going to whatever you tell me".

When ZETA asked if anyone had seen the torture taking place in the Calle Teotihuacanos, he added something that he had not said in his denunciation, that they put him in a double cab pickup with polarised windows that you could see into from outside, and beat him and suffocated him inside.

The version that the Police imposed was that Jaureguis wife had him killed, " you were hired to kill him, and hid the weapon behind a dumpster after use.

After they returned from a press conference, Quiroz and Olivas smoked a cigar, and gave him electric shocks and more punches.

The Hernandez version of events, was backed up by his family. His Sister said that around six in the morning, a group of Police arrived at his mothers house, and asked permission to enter because there had been a denunciation that a man in a black shirt had fled by jumping over the roofs, they searched and asked the lady if she had a son, his name, how he was and if I had a picture of him. "When the lady showed them a picture of him, they seized it and left.

The injuries

After presenting his complaint of torture, abuse of authority, among other crimes, two medical records were integrated into his case.

The medical exploration documents: "dried blood encrusted on the back of his right hand at the wrist, bruising to the first dorsal metacarpal of his right hand, rib contusions both sides of his centreline, a lesion less than a centimetre, of dry hematic crust on the right side of abdomen, left knee has moderate edema and limitation of range of movement and tenderness.

The radiologist adds, " soft tissue edema in the vertebrae regions on both sides of his centre line of his lumbar region of the spine, and chest, bones uninjured. A complete undisplaced fracture of the left fibula proximal epiphysis as a soft tissue edema.

He finalised indicating that the wounds did not put him in danger for his life, they didn't merit hospitalisation and would heal in less than 15 days.

The Municipal Police version

The girlfriend of the liberated declared that in the third and last search of her house, the Municipal Police arrived asking for "Pele", she knew him as "El Moreno", a nickname that according to the sister of Hernandez, he only used with her.

ZETA also left a video where you see how they entered her home without a warrant, and how they closed streets.

The Municipal Police version of events exposes that there was a witness, a neighbor in the area. Alejandro Lares Valladares, Secretary for Security, he said to this reporter.

How did the Police arrive at the conclusion that this man was presumably responsible?

By using witness testimony who mentions that he saw him running from the scene, he did not say that he was the killer.

Specifically this subject?

It coincided with his nickname, because he was a person known in this Colonia

At what hour? Hernandez says that he was detained at a different time to that recorded by the Police.

The exact time was not marked in the report, it does not consist of a timetable, the report mentions the hour in which he was sent before the Attorney General for Drug Dealing, they noted that he had multiple doses of cystal meth.

"Obviously there exist certain details which have dragged out the presentation of the alleged perpetrators, by technical issues and the development of the medical certification".


He alleges that they punched him

When recorded, all people presumable responsible are evaluated, the Office of the Attorney General Certified that there were no injuries to his body. I base this on the documents, and the Certificate says at the moment of Certification, without injury that legal medics can classify". "For this we sent a video and one can observe that he moves without problems".

How did you arrive at him? They mention that several similar suspects were detained....

"Obviously in an operation of this magnitude, they intervene with people that share the same characteristics, they interview in the field and determine the presumed responsibility of the subject. This fellow coincided with the characteristics, one of the guidelines that gives us confidence, is a shoe print found adjacent to the area where the gun was found and it matches the shoes the suspect was wearing".

Lares shows photos to ZETA, they have a ruler to establish the measure of the apparent coincidence, but the expert PGJE did not try.

How did they find the gun?

"They informed by radio that a witness found it and they cordoned off the area for the experts. The PGJE informed that the gun had been tested positive for the murder weapon".

The witnesses made declarations before the PGJE?

"At this point I just do not know, the witness mentioned seeing the suspect fleeing from the scene, and describes him as a person of dark complexion who removed a garment and threw it into the street".

In what moment did you start to talk to him about homicide, if you did why?

"There are interviews that we make in the field, the officials ask for information, he was asked, and as he coincided with the characteristics, and this is when he started shedding information. I have the understanding that during a journey in the Police vehicle, he explained where he hid, how he carried it out, and what he did after committing the assassination, and where he ran to and tried to hide.

Of the inconsistencies, ZETA asked, with relation to the first version, it indicates that the official was leaving his house on a motorcycle, which was not at the scene, and the alleged shot in the back. Lares justifies this" there is no motorcycle, but there appears to be a motorcycle helmet colored black of a metro official, and it calls ones attention that this helmet is outside not on his motorcycle.

One cannot give a trajectory for the bullet, but the Specialized Unit for Criminal Investigation (UEIC), and the primary indicators that the impact was in the back and leaving the front, even though the posture of the corpse does not accord.

Also one other thing calls our attention, he left the house with his jacket closed, and it was open when he was found, on a patch of dry ground, I do not know what light experts can shed on this. There are also a few drops of blood that do not coincide with how the official fell.

Municipal officials that were at the scene of the crime, said to this magazine that it was evident before they arrived, that the scene of the crime had been manipulated.

There are three denunciations for the Audit office, Office of Human Rights and the Office of the State, Have you already discussed this with your agents?

"Until this moment, no. I had a meeting with my District Boss, where he has told all officers that all Municipal Police and people in their service, that we will not tolerate torture, we must ensure the security of individuals, including those who are presumably responsible.

"I invite them, and its good that they went and filed their complaints with the relevant bodies, yes I will be respectful of the procedures that that body has to perform, and at the time that the participation of these elements are required, we will be clear and competitive to resolve and clarify the situation".

"I must be frank, if the elements are responsible, we will Judge them as they must be judged, obviously we are not going to tolerate these kind of acts, but also to be clear that the Police have the rights or reply, because there are also important versions that they can describe the events in which they participated".

The fears of a Lawyer

In representing Hernandez, the Lawyer Gabriel Celestino signalled that they are worried that although his client was set free because the prosecution didn't have any evidence against him and detained him illegally , but the SSPM continue to be stubborn in their assurance that he is culpable.

They were asked what they wanted and Celestino said, " Its not what we want, it is that the Police, those whose job is public security, to have committed an arbitrary and indiscriminate act, and have framed him in front of the communication media, and have discredited my client as the murderer who killed the Police Officer Humberto Jauregui".

"For that, in this case we are going to give until the last consequences, which are, the follow up to allegations that the Police Officers are suspended immediately by the appropriate office of the Attorney General. We are asking that they be arraigned, and the PDH take precautionary measures, because the life of this youth is in danger, as well as the Lawyer who has made all of this public.

There have been threats?

"No but outside my house, they have been patrolling, cars passing with plates that say Policia".

And your family?

"No but if you already made public that my brother is the killer, we don't want to live with that fear".

Original article in Spanish at Zetatijuana