The video from a security camera shows a new case of ill-treatment against five civilians in Nuevo Laredo, in addition to their apparent murder, at the hands of the military. The sequence, taken on May 18, shows how the military take civilians out of a van. Some of the civilians carry weapons. The soldiers disarm them, kick them and then place them next to a wall. Minutes later, at a somewhat strange moment, the military seem to be taking refuge from something and, meanwhile, shoot at the civilians. All die instantly except one, who later dies in the hospital.
The images, to which EL PAÍS has had access, show how the soldiers, with the five already dead, also alter the scene of the events. One of the elements grabs long weapons with a red bag to avoid touching them with his hands and leaving footprints, and places them next to the corpses. Later, another notices that one of the bodies is still wearing the handcuffs, which they themselves put on it earlier. He asks another classmate for the key and they take it from him. In between, paramedics have come to the scene to take one of the five, the one who would die later in the hospital. The Prosecutor’s Office wouldn’t get there for hours.
The officer in charge of the military convoy, infantry lieutenant José Luis N, signs the account of what happened before the Attorney General’s Office, in charge of the investigations. In the report, of which this newspaper has a copy, the lieutenant points out that he and his men were disarming the civilians, when their colleagues attacked them with bullets, “in an attempt to rescue his personnel.” According to the official, the military answered. Meanwhile, the detained civilians were trying to recover their weapons, according to this version. After the shooting was finished, the military realized that four of the five were dead and one more in “critical condition” as a result of the crossfire.
The lieutenant’s version contrasts with the video, since in the images no other civilian truck can be seen near where they are, nor anyone who is not a military man shooting. It is observed how the military try to take refuge, but it is not possible to see if they are shot. Be that as it may, in the video you can see how at least three soldiers shoot at the five unarmed civilians, next to the wall. Between the shots from the soldiers, one of the five moves, wriggles, as if he wanted to flee. He looks hurt, he is blindfolded. Seconds later, he stops moving. EL PAÍS has contacted a spokesperson for the Ministry of Defense (Sedena) to find out if the agency has taken any action on what happened. The response has been: “I have no information about it. I locate the event as such, but I have no further information. I would have to check.”
The episode is reminiscent of the one that occurred in February in the Cavazos Lerma neighborhood, also in Nuevo Laredo. Then, the military assassinated five unarmed boys and badly wounded another. They all came from spending the night in a disco. A seventh young man, who was unharmed, narrated later that the military had attacked them with bullets for no reason, when they were returning home. This boy also recounted that the military shot one of his colleagues, badly wounded, when he was getting out of the car in which they were all going, already when the uniformed men had the situation under control.
The February case achieved great notoriety in the press, because in several videos relatives of the boys appeared, confronting the military guarding the scene. Some soldiers fired into the air or to the ground. Civilians managed to knock down some soldiers and kicked them to the ground. The images from that day illustrate the consequences of the covert war that the northeastern border has experienced for years. The alleged easy trigger of the military – if it was not something worse – had had fatal consequences.
When the case came to the attention of the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the president regretted what had happened, although he avoided pointing out any war and channeled his story into the logic of isolated events. Trying to distance himself from the two previous governments, which registered dozens of cases of extrajudicial executions, torture and forced disappearances, perpetrated by sailors and the military, López Obrador usually points to the specific error, the rotten apples theory.
The video, step by step
The sequence of the case of May 18 includes the final part of a persecution that began after 2:30 p.m., between Lago Chapala street and Monterrey avenue, in the south of the border city. The video begins when a dark mid-cab van speeds across Monterrey Avenue and crashes into a wall, just below a shopping center security camera. It’s 2:36 p.m. After the crash, soldiers appear walking, pointing at the truck. A military vehicle, known in the milieu as the Sand Cat, a kind of tank for urban use, supports them.
The Sand Cat hits the passenger door and the rear door, preventing anyone from getting out there. Meanwhile, other soldiers take out the crew member and his companions from the pilot’s side. Some wear bulletproof vests and carry long weapons. The military take them away. Some soldiers shoot, apparently into the ground. From the shock, the men seem half disoriented. The soldiers subdue them and several kick them. In his report, Lieutenant José Luis N indicates that “one of them had an exposed head wound, due to the vehicular crash.”
Then the confusing episode begins. The Sand Cat leaves the lot where the wall is, heading north. At least eight soldiers remain with the detainees. They are close to them, they kick them from time to time. It’s 2:45 p.m. Suddenly, everyone gathers around the civilians’ van, some on the passenger side and others on the passenger side. They can see shots that hit the ground, some 15 meters from them, but it is not clear if they are from their own weapons or from others. Most go to the co-pilot’s side, except one, who remains on the pilot’s side, a few meters from where the civilians have been. In the images he is seen shooting at the detainees several times. From the other side of the truck, two other soldiers fire their long weapons at them.
It is then that one of the five civilians tries to flee, crawling. He has his face covered with a bandage. Several of the military shoot at him and he stops moving. The rest do not move, the four lie inert next to the wall. Minutes later, the Army’s Sand Cat appears again, a few hundred meters further on, on Monterrey Avenue. No other vehicles are visible nearby. It’s 2:48 p.m., everything has happened in just 12 minutes.
Five minutes later, one of the soldiers separates from the shelter they have found between the nose of the truck, the front doors, and the wall. He goes to the back, the one that faces the avenue. He picks up a rag or a red bag from the floor. He stops for a few seconds because four or five cars go by on the avenue. The military gestures for them to leave. When no one is passing by, he grabs a rifle with the bag. He walks over and places it next to the body of one of the dead civilians. Immediately afterwards he repeats the operation: he returns to the truck, takes another rifle and leaves it next to the body of another of the dead.
In the next few minutes everyone seems already calm. They are sitting or leaning between the truck and the wall. One of the soldiers seems injured, lying on the right front tire of the truck. His companions seem to comfort him. In his report, Lieutenant José Luis N explains that he is a sergeant, in charge of the vehicle’s machine gun, supposedly from the Sand Cat. According to his account, the sergeant “was injured by splinters in the face, the result of impacts that hit the chest of cartridges of the machine gun.”
paramedics
At 15:01 the Sand Cat approaches the crash site, accompanied by at least three military vehicles. She moves to the bushes and stays there. Five minutes later, one of the soldiers standing next to the civilian van takes a package from the back seat and gives it to a colleague, who has a cigarette in his mouth. He grabs it and leaves the scene. Immediately afterwards, a group of five soldiers, confident due to the presence of the military trucks, approached the bodies. Two specifically, it seems that they touch them with their feet. Supposedly, one of them is still alive. Seconds later they walk away. At 3:14 p.m., one of those two men, in white, is seen moving his arms.
Dying, no one approaches him. He moves his arms, his feet, while the soldiers look at him from a distance. They seem to realize that they have made a mistake. The comrade who previously placed weapons on the bodies has left one near the wounded man. But the civilian seems that he has no strength for almost nothing. At 3:17 p.m., six soldiers approached him, one carrying a black backpack, another taking aim at him, just in case he grabbed the rifle. But he does not. It’s not clear what’s next. In his report, Lieutenant José Luis N says that a military doctor gave first aid to the wounded man and that, meanwhile, they called an ambulance. The officer points out that the medical vehicle arrived at 15:45.
The military follows the manual. By then, they have already surrounded the scene with yellow tape. The ambulance arrives and four paramedics take the wounded civilian away on a stretcher. They put him in the vehicle and drive away. In the report, the lieutenant says that “when continuing with the inspection of the place, two vehicles abandoned by organized crime were found on the same avenue, heading north.” They are two armored trucks. Inside they find long weapons and a .50 caliber rifle, capable of piercing armor.
Later they find another truck, already on Arandillo street. They find nothing in that one, but they do find bullet holes. The lieutenant says that those trucks were the ones that were trying to rescue the five detained civilians. The officer says that at that moment, after 4:00 p.m., they call the FGR office in Nuevo Laredo to report the matter. While they wait, the military tries to clean up any trace of wrongdoing. At 4:28 p.m., one of them notices that one of the four dead civilians left by the wall is wearing handcuffs. He asks her for the keys and takes them from her. Another soldier watches. After a while, experts and prosecutors from the FGR arrive on the scene.
The case was heard in Nuevo Laredo, not because of the possible executions, but because of the number of alerts it generated on social networks. Clashes surrounding the alleged killings rocked the south of the city. In videos shared on networks, residents of the place are seen lying on the floor, sheltering from the bullets. The mayoress, Carmen Canturosas, asked the population through Facebook not to leave home or work. As usually happens in cases like this, the alarms of that day ran into the subsequent silence. Neither the FGR nor Sedena said a word about what happened or the status of the investigations. Asked this Tuesday about it, the Prosecutor’s Office has not answered.
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