By María Verza and Marcos Alemán - The Associated Press
MEXICO CITY - Salvadoran Victoria Esperanza Salazar, 36, has lived for years in Mexico as a refugee and in an incident that has yet to be clarified, the police in a tourist town in the Mexican Caribbean broke her neck, according to what the police confirmed on Monday. authorities.
The outrage that his death had aroused in both countries multiplied.
The images of Salazar in Tulum while he is face down, handcuffed and with the knee of a policewoman around his neck were released over the weekend on networks and generated heavy convictions in both Mexico and El Salvador.
The expert details only increased the anger.
[From El Salvador they demand justice for Victoria Salazar, killed by police submission in Mexico]
In the video you can see the woman on the ground next to a police car, her bare feet shaking before her body, already a corpse, was placed in a patrol car.
Two people passed by on bicycles.
There were food stalls just a few meters away.
The autopsy concluded that there was
“a fracture in the upper part of the spinal column produced by the rupture of the first and second vertebrae, which caused the loss of the victim's life,”
Oscar Montes de Oca, attorney general, said in a video. from Quintana Roo, the state where Tulum is located.
The Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, said he felt
"ashamed"
for what happened on Saturday in the tourist enclave.
He did not hesitate to call it murder and guaranteed that there will be no impunity.
His Salvadoran counterpart, Nayib Bukele, called for justice and promised help to the two daughters of the victim.
The videos that circulate in networks do not show what happened before Salazar was subjected and the authorities have not clarified it.
Manuel Barradas, owner of a small grocery store, said that the woman was "upset" and that is why, when the woman wanted to enter his store, he threw the gate.
It is not clear if the Salvadoran woman was under the influence of any drug.
Shortly after is when the police arrested her.
["Justice for my daughter", asks the mother of the Salvadoran woman who died at the hands of the police in Tulum]
The edited images also do not make it clear how much time the woman spent lying on the street with the agents talking next to her in apparent calm.
They then show how the corpse is loaded onto another patrol.
On Monday, in the place there were some discreet flowers with two candles and a phrase written on the ground "Here they killed Victoria".
Anger grew in social networks and on the same Monday, two separate acts of protest were already called in Tulum and Mexico City under the slogan #JusticiaParaVictoria.
Protesters place flowers next to a graffiti that reads "Justice for Victoria" during a protest in Mexico City on March 29, 2021 for the death of Salvadoran migrant Victoria Esperanza Salazar, who was subdued by the police in Tulum, Mexico. Pedro Pardo / AFP via Getty Images
According to the prosecutor, the injuries "are compatible and coincide with the subjection maneuvers that were applied to the victim during the process of his arrest" and demonstrate that there was a "disproportionate" use of force, which is why the process against the four agents involved, three men and one woman, for the crime of femicide.
In addition, Lucio Hernandez, secretary of Public Security of the state, announced the dismissal of the chief of police of Tulum, Nesguer Ignacio Vicencio Méndez.
Just before the autopsy result was released, López Obrador did not hesitate to assure during his morning conference that Salazar "was brutally treated and murdered," almost the same words used by his Salvadoran counterpart.
["They raped me, they beat me and I felt like I was disappearing": in Mexico women suffer human rights abuses when they go out to protest]
"It is a fact that fills us with pain, pain and shame," said
López Obrador.
"Those responsible will be punished, they are already in the process of being prosecuted, there will be no impunity."
Salazar left Sonsonate, a town west of San Salvador, five years ago due to violence and to seek better opportunities for her 15- and 16-year-old daughters, her mother, Rosibel Emérita Arriaza, told The Associated Press.
A single mother, she arrived in Tapachula, on the border with Guatemala, where she made her refugee request.
The National Migration Institute confirmed Monday that he had been granted this status.
Mexicans demonstrate against the death of Victoria Salazar at the hands of the Tulum police
March 30, 202102: 24
Later, he moved to Tulum, a city quieter than Cancun or Playa del Carmen but now facing difficulties due to its rapid development and increased criminal activity.
There she found cleaning work in local hotels and later had her daughters brought to Mexico.
Arriaza was in talks with Salvadoran authorities on Monday to repatriate his daughter's body and was planning a trip to Mexico to be with his granddaughters.
"I want justice for my daughter, because what they did to her is not fair," he said.
"She was a woman who was not armed, simply because she was a woman and I don't know what happened."
[1.5 million AstraZeneca vaccines arrive in Mexico from the US]
“I see thousands of Mexicans outraged, demanding justice for our compatriot. They are just as outraged as we are, "
said President Bukele through his official Twitter account.
"Let us not forget that it was not the Mexican people who committed this crime, but some criminals in the Tulum police."
"We only ask for justice," he added after announcing that the government would be in charge of the maintenance and studies of Salazar's two daughters.
The videos on the death of the Salvadoran recalled that of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020 that sparked violent protests and demonstrations against racism in the United States.
A group of women protest in San Salvador over the death of Victoria Salazar at the hands of the Mexican police, on March 29, 2021.REUTERSREUTERS / Jose Cabezas
Floyd, a black man, died after a white policeman put his knee on his neck for about nine minutes, even as Floyd was seen to faint.
The trial against the police officer accused of killing him began just Monday in Minneapolis.
The Catholic Church, the entity with the largest number of shelters for migrants in Mexico, expressed its concern "at the discrimination, racism and xenophobia that prevail in public security forces throughout the Mexican State."
"We cannot remain silent in the face of violence against migrants," he said in a statement.
[Mexico admits that the death toll from COVID-19 is 60% higher than the official one]
Quintana Roo's security secretary assured that what happened with Salazar does not represent the police institution or the authorities, but it is not the first time that Quintana Roo state police have been targeted for police abuses.
In November, in Cancun, a demonstration called in reaction to a femicide was shot down by the authorities, an action that caused three injuries, at least one complaint of rape and several accusations of irregular detentions.
The local police chief was removed from his post and the authorities launched an investigation into what happened.
The mayor of Tulum, Victor MasTah, sent a message to the inhabitants of the city and also to tourists:
“Rest assured that we are not going to allow any kind of impunity
to exist, that we will take action to prioritize their well-being and that we will seek to prevail Justice".