Dr. Beatriz Hernández, a 29-year-old Mexican, had been on the front lines of the fight against COVID-19 for more than a year in the Mexican state of Hidalgo.
But what he did not survive was police actions, according to his family.
She was last seen alive on June 9 by her father, who went to a police gallery because he wanted to find out why the doctor had been arrested.
"Get me out of here, dad," the young woman reportedly told him when she accused the officers who were detaining her of having beaten her.
Fifteen minutes later, Hernández was dead.
"The police officers came out to say that she had
committed suicide with a napkin,
" denounced Paola Palacios, a relative of Hernández, on social networks.
[The worst cases of police brutality in Mexico show that abuses are daily]
The police officers argued that they had tried to take her to a hospital, but clinic staff told local media that by the time she arrived she
no longer had vital signs.
Shortly before her death, the young doctor had been put on a patrol by the police in Progreso de Obregón, Hidalgo.
It remains unclear why she was detained, as she was apparently
only involved in a
minor
car crash
.
In a video shared on networks of the moment of the arrest, an officer is seen holding Hernández by the neck.
Hernández appears to be bleeding from his face.
"They strangled her," Palacios accused.
The doctor's relatives began to make the slogan #JusticiaParaBety viral on networks.
What happened in the Progreso de Obregón cell has not been publicly disclosed, but
seven policemen have already been detained
to investigate whether excesses in the use of force were committed that led to a femicide.
["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]
And the National Human Rights Commission of Mexico demanded by means of a statement that the investigation be carried out "avoiding impunity and punishing those responsible for the crimes they have committed by action or omission."
More than 90% of crimes reported in Mexico, including abuse of authority, go unpunished or sentenced, according to analysis.
The case of Bety Hernández is only the most recent to become public of a woman who is killed by the Mexican police.
At the end of 2020, the authorities of Cancun, a tourist site in southwestern Mexico, suppressed protests by gunmen.
Women were demonstrating in opposition to an increase in femicides, the murders of women based on their gender (these homicides are usually preceded by physical, sexual or psychological abuse of their partner).
In March of this year, in another tourist town, Tulum, Salvadoran Victoria Salazar died when police officers who tried to arrest her broke her neck with their maneuvers.
[
The autopsy reveals that the Tulum police broke Victoria Salazar's neck.
This is what is known about his death]
This Sunday, doctors in the capital of Hidalgo, Pachuca, came out to protest in rejection of the lack of information about the death of Hernández and to ask for better working conditions.
"It is difficult for you to find out about the accident of a friend through Facebook, then you try to locate her family and at the time they tell you that she has already died but not because of the car accident," Diana Granados, Hernández's partner, lamented to the newspaper Millennium.
With information from Milenio and EFE