Fugitive police officer arrested in killing of college student in Mexico

A fugitive police officer has been arrested for the killing of a scholar whose loss of life infected tensions over certainly one of Mexico’s worst human rights tragedies, authorities mentioned Wednesday.

Yanqui Gomez, 23, was shot useless on March 7 in a confrontation with police within the southern state of Guerrero, prompting offended college students to set fireplace to patrol vehicles.

Gomez attended the Ayotzinapa school, the identical instructing coaching heart as 43 students whose murky disappearance practically a decade in the past shocked the nation.

“In the present day at daybreak the police officer who killed the younger man from Ayotzinapa was arrested. All those that participated are actually in jail,” President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador mentioned.

The officer was detained at a ranch protected by guards, he mentioned at his each day information convention.

The capturing happened a day after protesters smashed open a door to Mexico’s presidential palace demanding to satisfy Lopez Obrador to debate the Ayotzinapa case.

The 43 college students had been touring to an illustration in Mexico Metropolis in 2014 when investigators imagine they have been kidnapped by a drug cartel in collusion with corrupt police.

The precise circumstances of their disappearance are nonetheless unknown, however a reality fee arrange by the federal government has branded the case a “state crime,” saying the army shared accountability, both instantly or by way of negligence.

Arrests have been made or ordered for dozens of suspects. In 2022, federal brokers arrested former Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam, who oversaw the unique investigation. 

Authorities have been in a position to determine burned bone fragments of solely three of the 43 lacking college students. The work largely includes looking for clandestine body dumping grounds in rural, remoted components of the state the place drug cartels are lively. In October, officers performed DNA checks to find out if a few of the college students have been amongst 28 charred bodies found in freshly covered mass graves.

Guerrero is amongst six states in Mexico that the U.S. State Division advises Individuals to fully keep away from, citing crime and violence. 

“Armed teams function independently of the federal government in lots of areas of Guerrero,” the State Division says in its travel advisory.