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Relatives of the deceased in El Salvador
Photo: JOSE CABEZAS / REUTERS
The case of a woman who died in a police operation in Mexico caused a stir over the weekend.
Now it seems clear: she suffered a broken neck when the police fixed her on the ground.
The four officers involved had used disproportionate force when they were arrested in Tulum and were arrested on suspicion of femicide - i.e. murder of a woman because of her gender, the state prosecutor of the state of Quintana Roo said on Monday.
The officers are three men and one woman.
According to the autopsy, the fracture of two cervical vertebrae caused the death of the El Salvador woman.
It was initially unclear why she should be arrested.
The Tulum Police Chief has been fired.
At the weekend, videos of the Saturday incident were distributed in the media and social networks, including by the Mexican newspaper "El Universal".
It shows the woman lying on her stomach on the street next to a patrol car with her hands bandaged.
In the meantime a policewoman kneels on her back.
You can hear the woman screaming.
Later, the police put her now motionless body on the back of a pickup truck.
According to Mexican media reports, the victim was 36 years old and lived as a refugee in Mexico.
"She was brutally treated and killed," said President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Monday about the woman.
His colleague in El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, called for those responsible to be severely punished.
The case also caused a stir because of its similarities with the death of George Floyd last May during a police operation in the United States.
Videos at the time showed the white cop Derek Chauvin kneeling on the neck of the African American Floyd for almost nine minutes.
Chauvin's murder trial began in Minneapolis on Monday.
ptz / dpa