The Baja California prosecutor, faced with the femicide of a 16-year-old girl: "She had tattoos everywhere"

Danna Marian Reyes, 16, in a photograph published on social networks.

Young Danna Reyes, 16, was murdered last Saturday in Mexicali (Baja California). Her body was found engulfed in flames in a peripheral colony of the state capital. Referring to this femicide, the Baja California prosecutor, Guillermo Ruiz Hernández, added on Monday: "Well, the girl also had tattoos everywhere."

In a conference on insecurity in Baja California, the state attorney warned of the growing spike in homicides in Mexicali and mentioned the murder of Reyes in a superficial way: “How are we protecting the youth from this evil that we are going through? You have to attack it and also work on prevention. Sadly in Mexicali a 16-year-old girl was murdered last week, the girl also had tattoos everywhere and the crime is also committed by an 18-year-old and a 22-year-old, her companions, 18, 22 and 23 years old ”.

Ruiz Hernández refers to the two men and a woman arrested for the murder of the young woman, who were identified by the recording of a security video, which shows how they get out of a car with a figure wrapped in blankets, they place her in the ground and set on fire. Right after, around 3:00 p.m., they get back into the vehicle and leave the place.

The prosecutor uses this case to warn that "the delinquency problem in the State decreased at those ages": "We have to be very careful, what we are going to do with them, how we are going to prevent that adolescence from reaching crime ”.

Faced with a direct question from a citizen about the relationship between tattoos and the acts of young offenders, the prosecutor tries to argue that "it is not so serious that they have the tattoo", but that the parents induce the minors to do them.

At that moment, Ruiz Hernández charged again against Danna Reyes: “This girl, I'm telling you, a victim of Mexicali, had a tattoo with a submachine gun and a goat's horn on her forearm and it is very serious that we do not take the precaution of taking care of the teenagers and children. We are going to find out how we sanction parents who allow or induce these tattoos to minors ”.

Ruiz Hernández's comment has been widely criticized on social networks and even organizations such as the Baja California State Human Rights Commission (CEDHBC) have demanded that the Prosecutor's Office not “re-victimize or stigmatize victims of crimes such as femicide and other types of violence against women ”. Specifically, the Commission demanded that "body modifications such as tattoos not be associated with criminal conduct."

The Baja California Forensic Medical Service pointed out that the murdered young woman had 45% of her body burned, in addition to "multiple injuries throughout the body such as contusions and wounds produced by a stabbing mechanism in the neck and chest." Cranioencephalic trauma and injuries were the "determining cause" of death, according to various Mexican media.