Mexico: 11 Police Officers Found Guilty of Killing 17 Migrants Near US-Mexico Border

A Mexican court has found 11 former police officers guilty of killing 17 migrants near the US-Mexico border. The migrants were reportedly shot and then burned on the Mexico side by these officers.

The prosecutor's office stated that its investigators "managed to obtain a conviction" against the 11 former policemen who were all charged with homicide. Another one cooperated with investigators and was found guilty of abuse of office instead.

According to CBS News, Judge Patricio Lugo Jaramillo ruled there was enough evidence to convict all eleven suspects of their charges. The prosecutors showed evidence during the trial that the 17 victims "lost their lives due to gunshot wounds and were subsequently incinerated."

The charred bodies of the 17 migrants were found in a truck in the municipality of Camargo, which is known for being a major smuggling transit point for both human trafficking and drug trafficking. It is a widely contested area where drug cartels vie for dominance. It is currently controlled by the Gulf Cartel but is being challenged by a remnant of the Zetas known as the Northeast Cartel.

Authorities discovered 19 bodies inside the truck, with the other two remains belonging to two Mexican citizens believed to be human traffickers. Sixteen of them were from Guatemala, and one was from Honduras.

Migrant Killed by Police in Mexico Was a Professional Soccer Player From Guatemala

An attempt to get a new life in the United States turned tragic for 22-year-old football player Marvin Tomás, who was originally from Comitancillo, Guatemala, as he was one of the 17 migrants killed in the attack by the 11 police officers.

The BBC noted that he played for a third-division football club in Guatemala called Juvenido Comiteca. Most of the other victims were also from the same town he grew up in.

The killings of migrants are not unusual in Mexico, and police officers doing it is not uncommon either, as municipal and state police officers are often recruited by cartels and bribed to do their dirty work for them. They also often offer large sums of cash to turn a blind eye to cartel activities.

What Happened to the Migrants Killed Near the US-Mexico Border

Investigators found that of the 19 people killed, including the Mexican smugglers, 16 were male, and one was female. Two of the bodies were so badly burned that they could not be immediately identified.

Tamaulipas Attorney General Irving Barrios Mojica noted that the burned truck where the bodies were found near the Rio Grande, which is just across from Texas. The bodies had 113 bullet impacts in total, and investigators theorized that because they did not see any spent shell casings at the scene, the migrants and their traffickers might have been shot and killed elsewhere. The truck might have been driven to that spot before being set on fire.

Barrios Mojica noted that the state police officers charged in the killings might have known that their shell casings might give them away and may have probably picked them up and cleaned up the crime scene, according to The Guardian.

The truck itself was supposed to be part of a larger convoy of vehicles transporting migrants to the US border. These usually have armed men aboard, and the AG did not rule out that disputes between rival drug gangs may be the reason for the killings.

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Rick Martin

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