“I’m out of breath,” Dante Emiliano, a 12-year-old boy, cried desperately while lying on the ground. He had just been shot three times in the abdomen at the door of his grandmother’s house in Paraíso (Tabasco). “I don’t want to die,” he pleaded. An atrocious sob that has moved Mexico, involved in a spiral of violence with more than 30,000 murders a year. Dante Emiliano later died in a hospital from his injuries. The State Prosecutor’s Office has stated that it is working with security camera recordings and witnesses to clarify the crime. For now, the agency has ruled out that the attack was due to a kidnapping of his family.
Calle 8 de Octubre in Paraíso is just one kilometer from the town’s Town Hall. There on May 21, in broad daylight, Emiliano was shot three times. The information about the case is still confusing: it is unknown if someone knocked on the door of Emiliano’s grandmother’s home or if the minor received a phone call that made him go outside. Nor who and why he shot a child. “A meticulous work is carried out, which due to the rigor of the investigations requires secrecy,” said the Tabasco Prosecutor’s Office, which two days later has still not explained what the main line of investigation is.
The images of Emiliano on the ground while waiting for the ambulance have shocked the State. The neighbors tried to help him and cover his wounds, while the boy writhed. He was taken to the Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) regional hospital, located in Villahermosa, the capital, about 70 kilometers from Paraíso. Hours later it was announced that he had died due to bullets damaging vital organs.
The governor of Tabasco, Carlos Manuel Merino, has not commented on the case. Yes, his spokesperson, Juan Carlos Castillejos, has done so in his X account: “In relation to the death of the teenager shot yesterday in the municipality of Paraíso, it is reported that high-level personnel from the Tabasco Prosecutor’s Office are in said place and follow several lines of investigation. At the end of the investigations, you will be duly informed.”
This Wednesday the mutilated bodies of two people appeared in Comalcalco, a neighboring municipality of Paraíso, with a sign that reads: “Not with children”, “children do not touch each other”. The Prosecutor’s Office has not yet confirmed whether this execution is related to Emiliano’s homicide.
Municipal agents are guarding the house of Emiliano, who was in his first year at the José María Pino Suárez Federal Secondary School. Paraíso is a town of 25,000 inhabitants on the coast of Tabasco. In the first months of 2024, 199 murders have been recorded in the State, one of the quietest in the country, according to figures up to April from the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System. Of those, 148 have been by firearm. There is no data on trafficking of minors in the State and there are six kidnappings in four months. In comparison, at the national level on those same dates, there have been 8,318 intentional homicides (also 6,000 with firearms), 142 kidnappings and four cases of trafficking of minors throughout the country.
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