Mexico Army Confirms 5 Civilians Killed by Mexican Soldiers in Nuevo Laredo

Mexico's Defense Department confirmed Tuesday that Mexican soldiers fired shots at a pickup truck in the border city of Nuevo Laredo, killing five men and injuring another over the weekend.

In a statement, the department said soldiers heard gunshots in the early hours of Sunday and approached the pickup with no license plates. The department noted that the occupants of the pickup sped up in a "brusque and evasive way" when they saw the soldiers.

The army troops said the speeding vehicle then crashed into a parked vehicle, and when they heard the crash, they started shooting. The soldiers did not say if they thought the loud noise was a gunshot. A sixth person in the truck was only hospitalized with gunshot wounds, while a seventh person in the vehicle was not harmed.

The department was reportedly cooperating with civilian prosecutors to investigate the deaths. In a state crime scene report acquired by The Associated Press on Monday, the Mexican soldiers said the pickup truck ignored their orders to stop.

In a separate statement, the activist group Nuevo Laredo Human Rights Committee noted that the shooting incident sparked a scuffle between soldiers and a big crowd of angry residents who believed the victims were not armed, so "there was no reason to arbitrarily kill them in this way."

Videos of the Shooting Incident in Mexico Quickly Spread Online

Videos of the clash posted on social media showed a street brawl between residents and Mexican soldiers near the bullet-ridden pickup truck. Some residents can be seen throwing punches, knocking a soldier to the ground, and repeatedly kicking him.

Toward the end of that incident, shots were heard, and people started running, but it is unclear who fired them, Al Jazeera reported. Raymundo Ramos, head of the Nuevo Laredo Human Rights Committee, released a video statement in which he accused the army of firing into the crowd but with no immediate information about any additional casualties.

Ramos also said among those killed were teens who had only returned from a night out at a club when they were shot. However, Nuevo Laredo Mayor Carmen Lilia Canturosas said Monday that none of the victims were minors.

She added that the Mexican army, the National Human Rights Commission, and the Attorney General's Office were already investigating the case and collecting evidence.

According to the state crime scene report, three bodies were found in the pickup truck, while two were discovered on the sidewalk nearby. Such reports usually cite the weapons found at a crime scene, but no mention was made in any of the cases.

One of the Victims Could Be a U.S. Citizen

The state crime scene report noted that a Texas-issued identification document was discovered on one of the bodies. However, Reuters reported that the U.S. Embassy could not immediately say if any U.S. citizens or residents were involved.

On behalf of the victims and their relatives, the Nuevo Laredo Human Rights Committee announced Monday that it had filed a complaint with federal prosecutors. In its statement, the rights group noted that the victim's families and a journalist who arrived at the scene were met with a violent response from the army troops.

"The Mexican army is out of control... Prosecutors have to clear up what happened, and the president must stop protecting (the soldiers)," Raymundo Ramos said.

Last September, rights groups and foreign organizations, such as the United Nations, voiced their disapproval of Mexico's Congress' decision to give the army control over the National Guard.

"Sending soldiers out onto the streets with weapons of war has led to more violence, not less," said Tyler Mattiace, a Mexico researcher for Human Rights Watch, adding that the killings highlight a defective strategy to reduce crime.

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Bert Hoover

WATCH: Locals Fight With Mexican soldiers After Killing of Five Men - From Al Jazeera