Puebla Bombing, Apaseo El Grande Bomb Scare, A Rash of Copycat Bombings Across Mexico

"HEARST" for Borderland Beat

In the state of Puebla, an unknown man placed a package bomb at a family’s home that later exploded but injured none. In the town of Apaseo el Grande in the state of Guanajuato, there was a bomb threat scare which ended up being false. And new updates on the Salamanca bomber Eduardo reveal he is the relative of multiple Guanjuato government officials.

Puebla Bombing 

On the morning of September 24, 2021, residents of the Real de Guadalupe subdivision requested the presence of emergency services due to the sound of a large explosion. Residents believed a vehicle had exploded. 

The residents told the operator that they did not know why the red hatchback vehicle, which was parked on F Street of 13 Norte subdivision, exploded and could not tell if anyone was injured by the attack. 

Municipal police arrived at the reported location and found a red vehicle that was completely decimated by what appeared to be explosive damage. The vehicle was parked next to a two story house, which also took significant damage. Parts of the exploded vehicle were left scattered in the area. Paramedics and PGE later arrived at the location. 

Milenio writes that It should be noted that in the state of Puebla, when there is an attack related to explosive devices,  the Federal Attorney General's Office (FGR) usually takes over investigating the attacks. However, given the immediacy required, it was elements of the State Attorney General's Office (FGE) who were called to the scene to begin the investigation, until FGR agents were available to take over. 

The news publication Municipios Puebla reported that at first the Secretary of State Security stated the initial findings indicated the explosion of the vehicle was actually caused by the explosion of a gas tank.

However, neighbors who were in the general area during the time of the explosion publicly insisted that the official version was not logical, because the explosion caused a strong smell of gunpowder and not gas.

Video Source: pueblaroja.mx

Then, as seen above, surveillance footage leaked online, published by pueblaroja.mx, which showed a camera facing the red vehicle, parked on the street. A few minutes before the timestamp of 9:00am, a man wearing blue denim jeans, white baseball cap and a black hoodie can be seen approaching the vehicle. He is carrying a large box or container which is held over his shoulder. When he reaches the red vehicle, he places the box he was holding down on the ground, sandwiching in between the back right side of the red vehicle and the two story home. 

He then turns back towards the direction he came from and walks away. Then there is a cut in the surveillance footage and then the red vehicle parked by the house is shown again. Within a few seconds a large explosion occurs, appearing to originate from the location of the placed box. Cadena Politica is currently reporting that the time in between the placement of the box and the actual detonation time was only a few minutes. 

Milenio is reporting that unofficially, law enforcement has said inside the box was a homemade-looking bomb “of little complexity.”

The source Municipios Puebla reported that there is talk of it being a direct attack on the family living in the property, but so far there is no official version of events. No one was reportedly injured by the attack other than one of the residents of the property attacked, who had a panic attack and was attended to by paramedics.

Apaseo El Grande, Guanajuato Bomb Scare

On September 24, 2021, minutes after 11:00am, the emergency line received a report of a suspicious suitcase having been left on the streets of Venustiano Carranza that was said to contain a bomb. The reported location was one block from the Central Bus Station in the town of Apaseo El Grande in Guanajuato state.

Municipal police officers were dispatched and they saw on the sidewalk a black suitcase tied with brown duct tape. Officers did not approach the package. The two blocks surrounding the suitcase were cordoned off from the public by the officers. Specialists from the Army (SEDENA) were called in to secure and remove the package from the street,  assisted by personnel and equipment specialized in handling explosives. It is now being online that the suitcase was a false bomb threat, and that the suitcase actually contained human remains. 

Suitcase visible in front of green door.

This discovery comes after a metal box with a device similar to a grenade was discovered on Tuesday, September 21, 2021 in this exact same area, near the Central Bus Station in the town of Apaseo El Grande. The discovery was made when a woman walking down the street opened the box out of curiosity and saw an explosive looking device inside. 

In response to her report, 20 homes or merchants were forced to be evacuated and the Army (SEDENA) and the National Guard safely removed the explosive without incident.

Salamanca Update 

This comes in the wake of the package bomb explosion which killed two in Salamanca, which occurred earlier in the week on September 19, 2021. 

As a recent update to the Salamanca bombing, El Universal reports that one of the two arrested perpetrators of the bombing, Eduardo, is a relative of Guanajuato officials. The alleged bomber Eduardo is the son of a former local deputy named Baldomero Ramírez Escamilla. And he is the brother of the PRD councilor of the Valle de Santiago town hall, Romeo Ramírez Flores.

Eduardo, pictured left, with his partner Georgina, right.

So why are there seemingly so many bombings and bomb threats occuring in Mexico all of a sudden? In crime, the phenomena of crimes of a similar modus operandi occurring in clusters is referred to as the copycat effect.  This effect is the alleged tendency of sensational publicity/coverage about violent homicides or suicides to result in more of the same type of events through imitation. This is not exclusive to bombings, in fact it is more often observed with the crimes of mass shootings and serial offenders. 

A famous example of this phenomena is on March 13, 1996, Thomas Hamilton killed 16 children and one teacher at Dunblane Elemntary School in the country of Scotland, before before turning his gun on himself and committing suicide. 

Martin Bryant.

Then on April 28, 1996,  a man named Martin Bryant committed a mass shooting in Port Arthur, in the country of Australia. Martin Bryant killed 35 people and injured 23 more before he was successfully arrested. According to his lawyer, Bryant was motivated in large part by media coverage of the Dunblane shooting, particularly the attention given to the perpetrator. 

Whether any of these recent copycat bombings are cartel related is still unknown at this time.

Puebla Sources: Puebla State Police Tweets, Milenio, Municipios Puebla, Reporte Indigo, El Sol de Puebla, Cadena Política, Aristegui Noticias

Apaseo El Grande Sources: El Heraldo de Leon, Ghost Deviil, El Universal, AM, Punto Parte 

Salamanca Updates: El Universal