Officers committed “violations of the right to life by excessive use of force that entailed the arbitrary execution of 22 civilians”, the country’s National Human Rights Commission said.
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Mexico’s National Commission on Human Rights has determined that federal police officers executed at least 22 individuals at a ranch a year ago, a grim reminder that human rights abuses by the country’s security forces are not limited to the military.
The Jalisco New Generation Cartel members were holed up at Rancho El Sol when the federal police force, backed by a Black Hawk helicopter attacked the drug cartel and gunned the members down, the commission found.
It says about two dozen suspected drug cartel members were executed by federal police officers. Fifty-four more federal police officers arrived along with a helicopter.
Police said the Rancho del Sol shootout began when police took fire from a civilian truck, which led them to the ranch. “We do not believe that it confirms the hypothesis of unofficial executions”, Sales said in a separate news conference. The number of suspected criminals killed in this incident was the highest since President Enrique Pena Nieto assumed office in 2012, the news agency reported.
In the weeks before, the cartel had hit security forces hard, including shooting down an army helicopter, killing six soldiers.
A human rights commission report into that incident found that at least 12 people were executed during an operation in which a military patrol stormed a warehouse filled with alleged gunmen, and several women.
But, the commission established that 40 people were shot, one died in a fire and another was run over. “They acted in legitimate defence”.
The government refused to release the post-mortem reports for the victims.
The army’s version was that 22 suspects died in a gunfight in which only one soldier was wounded.
On Thursday, the commission said two survivors of the bloodshed in Tanhuato had been forced to watch three slayings and were then tortured.
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