Luis Adam Rodriguez Santiago He was traveling in his truck Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, along with his partner – who was pregnant – and three other people. They were on their way to a gathering, but were victims of an armed attack that prevented them from arriving.
According to a testimony from Luis, who was driving a Chevrolet Tahoe, when they were at kilometer 9 of Libramiento Vial Mex II, Nuevo Laredo-Piedras Negras Federal Highway, they realized that a pickup from the National Guard (GN) I was following them.
The statements taken up in a statement from the Human Rights Committee of Nuevo Laredo pointed out that when the military unit was approximately 50 meters away, they began to hear several shots. In an attempt to avoid the hail of fire, Luis tried to change lanes, but lost control and crashed into a retaining wall.
The young man shared that while the military agents emptied their magazines against him, they yelled at them “Run, run or here we kill you!”.
During the attack, carried out by at least three members of the National Guard including a gunner, Luis felt that a bullet entered his back and it came out of his chest. He tried to run to safety and, when he turned to see the scene of the attack, he saw that the rest of his companions were on the ground.
At that moment, he realized that Miriam, who was pregnant with his baby, had been injured. He tried to get closer to her and, when he was a couple of meters away, the uniformed men yelled at him “Don’t come close, culer*, we’re going to kill you”. In response, the young man begged them to help his partner, but his request was ignored. “They just stared at us, then I hugged her (Miriam) and they got close to the truck and the National Guard left.”
The artilleryman instructed his companions to withdraw, so they left the place. Minutes later, another GN vehicle came to the site and provided support.
The balance of the infamous attack was the murder of Philip Garcia54 years old, and Miriam Mariana Flores, 15 years old, who was eight months pregnant. On the other hand, in addition to Luis, they were also injured Edwin Leonel (14 years old, cousin of Luis) and Veronica Patricia Trevino24, friend of Luis.
In an interview with Azucena Uresti, the president of the Nuevo Laredo Human Rights Committee, Raymond Ramosexplained that at the scene of the events they found at least 83 shell casings. The alleged members of the GN fired more than eight dozen bullets against the five unarmed civilians.
During his conversation with the journalist, Ramos denounced the silence that, until now, the different military corporations have maintained, from the National Guard to the Secretary of National Defense (sedena).
“It is a cover-up message at the highest level, from a commander whose hands are stained with blood (…) It is not explained how three national guards fired shots and instead of helping them they abandoned them to their fate,” added the activist .
As part of the investigations, the president of the Committee pointed out that they are looking at a couple of videos that would show the direction that the GN truck took after the attack. In addition, he would be working on the spoken portrait of one of the military elements that did not have his face covered.
Although the reason why the alleged national guards would have carried out these executions is unknown, The country shared fragments of the testimony of Verónica Treviño, who indicated that, apparently, all it would have been a fatal mistake.
After being hit by the burst of bullets, the young woman tried to escape. “I wanted to cross the fence, because they said they were going to kill us. But then they checked the truck and they say ‘güey, we screwed up, we screwed up, they had nothing’”.
