MEXICO CITY— In the security camera footage, a truck spirals out of control and crashes into a chain link fence at full speed. Behind them, an armed military vehicle pulls up and Mexican soldiers approach the truck, rifles drawn. The soldiers pull the men out of the truck, kick them and line them up against the fence. Later, the soldiers begin indiscriminately firing. Before the paramedics arrive, the soldiers stealthily place guns next to the deceased civilians and remove their handcuffs.Mexico’s Defense Ministry would later claim the soldiers killed the civilians in the truck—alleged drug traffickers—in a bloody confrontation. But the supermarket security camera footage of the May 18 incident, which was obtained and published by El Pais and Univision, appears to indicate that the soldiers executed the civilians and then covered up the crime.The video flatly contradicts the military’s version of events.According to El Pais, the military’s report to the Mexican Attorney General’s Office states that the soldiers were disarming the men in the truck when more alleged cartel members arrived and began firing on the soldiers. The men in the truck, meanwhile, attempted to recover their weapons, the military claimed. The soldiers began firing back, and only after the shooting was over did they realize that four of the detainees were dead and a fifth was in critical condition before dying at the hospital.
The security camera footage shows that after arresting the men in the black truck, the soldiers appeared to bunch together, nervous about an attack, and fired across the road. It's not clear whether they were fired upon by unseen aggressors. Bullets can be seen bouncing off the ground, but it's unclear if they are from the soldiers' own firearms. Advertisem*nt “Apparently there was an execution and that cannot be allowed,” López Obrador said. “These are isolated cases and when they occur they are punished… It was excessive force, violence, seeking to confront violence with violence. All this has to be banished, because it was introduced in the neo-liberal period.” In 2021, Mexican authorities arrested 30 marines from the Navy’s elite-special forces unit in connection with the abductions and disappearance of 47 people in the city between January and June of 2018. VICE News revealed that at least 22 of the 30 marines received training from the U.S.
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