Atty General of Jalisco Fires 14 Ministerial Police for Kidnapping during the Aftermath of Giovzanni López's Murder

Yaqui for Borderland Beat from: Zeta / udgtv / LaJornada

The Jalisco Prosecutor General's Office suspended 14 elements of the Investigative Police for their alleged participation in the protests that took place on June 5.

The agency reported that processes are continuing to demarcate the responsibility of its public servants in the events, in which dozens of people were extrajudicially detained and released in various areas of Guadalajara.

The case of police brutality in Guadalajara, Jalisco, has triggered massive protests, riots, and set the streets and social media on fire, which have been reporting on here on BB.

His name was Giovanni López, and many compare his case to that of Floyd, who also died shortly after being arrested by the police.

Giovanni was 30 years old and a bricklayer. He was arrested on May 4 in the municipality of Ixtlahuacán de los Membrillos, in the Guadalajara metropolitan area. A day later, he died in police custody in circumstances that have not yet been clarified.

This week, the video of his arrest with the hashtag #JusticiaParaGiovanni flooded social media. His family reported that the reason for the arrest had been the failure to wear face masks, although this was later denied by state authorities.

This number of suspended investigative police officers adds to the criminal proceeding in court against Commander Salvador Perea and the element Raúl Gómez Mireles, linked to the process for abuse of authority.

On June 5, the ministries prevented dozens of people from arriving at the premises of the Prosecutor's Office, in the Industrial Zone, to protest the police repression of a previous day and the release of 28 detainees.

Investigative agents armed with sticks, tubes and baseball bats, were picking up people who wanted to join the protest in unmarked trucks without plates.

Some of the detained protesters were allegedly beaten, robbed of their mobile phones, and released in remote areas of the city so that they could not reach the march.

Civil society organizations and human rights protectors at the national and international levels described the acts as enforced disappearance; however, state authorities investigate only abuse of authority.

Jalisco Governor for the period 2018 - 2024.

After the events, the next day the Governor of Jalisco Enrique Alfaro Ramírez bowed out of having issued any order to repress the protesters, and incidentally, exonerated prosecutor Gerardo Octavio Solís Gómez.

The Jalisciense was born in Guadalajara on June 20, 1973. Civil Engineer from ITESO and Master in Urban Studies from the Colegio de México.

During his professional career he was a local deputy in the LVIII Legislature of the Jalisco Congress, there he chaired the first Commission of Metropolitan Affairs.

In the period from 2010 to 2011 he was municipal president of Tlajomulco de Zúñiga and in 2015 he was elected municipal president of Guadalajara, for the period 2015 - 2018. 

The president assured that the police elements "went free" and acted on their own, contradicting orders to respect human rights. He even said that the prosecution could be infiltrated by organized crime.

The first actions to sanction the actions of the ministerial agents were the arrest of Commander Perea and Agent Gómez, which caused annoyance in the corporation, when it was pointed out that the orders had come "from above".

Three weeks after the events, the suspension of these 14 elements of the agency is reported, including the deputy director and the building custody commander.

The State Prosecutor's Office expressed through a statement that the agents have already been notified of the suspension by the Internal Comptroller, while investigations continue "to determine what was the participation they had during these events."

The supervisory bodies will determine the possible sanctions to which the public servants would be credited within the administrative procedures, which are independent of the criminal proceedings.

Through whatsapp groups, investigating agents expressed their disagreement with the measures, as they request the suspension of their director (key J1), whom they blame for having "lowered" the order to repress the protesters.

             The Attorney General of Jalisco, Guadalajara Jalisco, Gerardo Octavio Solís Gómez

This Wednesday, June 18,  the coordinator of the Security Cabinet and the head of the Jalisco Prosecutor's Office appeared with local deputies to explain the actions of the security elements in the violent events of June 4 and 5 in the protests carried out for the death of Giovanni.

Erika Pérez García, coordinator of the Morena deputies, highlighted the curriculum of the Jalisco Prosecutor who presents complaints and claims in Human Rights and in international organizations for violating the rights of people when he was the head of the Jalisco Attorney General. She assured that the events of June 4 will lead to the latest consequences.

Enrique Velázquez, deputy of the PRD, questioned the time of Giovanni's investigation folder, since he points out that the legal actions to find those responsible for the death of the young man were acted late. He also questioned the police officers who are not on the payroll of the Ixtlahuacán de los Membrillos town hall.

The deputy Mariana Fernández of the PRI did not share the minutes of the investigation folders that the Prosecutor's Office carried out in the death of Giovanni. She said she acted when the case was media.

The deputy of the Citizen Movement, Salvador Caro, stressed that the State Police carried out a good strategy to resist the excesses of the violent protesters who infiltrated.

In his speech, Gerardo Octavio Solís Gómez, Prosecutor of Jalisco, indicated that for the good conduct of the investigation, he met with the Prosecutor of the Republic to receive technical assistance and that the federal agency be certain of the results of the investigations.

He pointed out that on Wednesday the investigation folder was delivered so that the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic could carry out the professional investigation and coordinate with the bodies that took the case, including the ECHR, the FGR and the Anticorruption Prosecutor's Office.

In turn, Macedonio Tamez explained that the unit in his charge has neither command nor leadership in the police forces according to the powers given by law. Regarding the riots, he said that the demonstration was viewed as calm, so they let their guard down.

From La Jornada:

Guadalajara, Jalisco: The commander of the Investigative Police of the Jalisco Prosecutor's Office, Salvador Perea Rodríguez, was in charge of the operation last Friday, when some 60 young people were deprived of their liberty by cells of plainclothes agents in vans without official badges.

The action also included the participation of uniformed state and municipal police officers - men and women - who acted under the slogan of intimidating the detained protesters and hitting those who resisted, as well as using official facilities.

Perea Rodríguez was arrested on Saturday along with the agent of the Theft of Vehicles, Raúl Gómez Mireles, accused by Governor Enrique Alfaro and prosecutor Gerardo Octavio Solís of disobeying the orders they gave to avoid attacks and repression of the non-conformists, which according to the president, could be because organized crime infiltrated the agency to destabilize Jalisco .

In an interview with La Jornada , a student at the University of Guadalajara, who was arrested with two friends on Friday by plainclothes ministerial agents on their way to the protest at the prosecution, identified Commander Perea as the one who instructed the police to carry out the arrests.

At the agency's headquarters, Perea also gave orders to uniformed officers to harass the 60 youths locked up in the two provisional detention cages known as kennels .

In fact, according to the collected version that coincides with that of other young detainees, state police officers were in charge of releasing the boys in places on the outskirts of the city and abandoning them to their fate.

This Sunday, relatives of Perea and Gómez Mireles protested outside Casa Jalisco and the prosecution, and asserted that both are scapegoats , since they only obeyed orders given by Octavio Solís.

Agents outraged at the arrest of their colleagues revealed that since Thursday they were concentrated at the heliport and instructed to use tubes and sticks to intimidate protesters. "We did not send ourselves alone, those orders were given by our governor and prosecutor, one of the uniformed men affirmed."