Mexican president condemns death of Salvadoran woman in police custody
SMA NEWS – MEXICO CITY
Mexico’s president on Monday sharply condemned the weekend killing of a Salvadoran woman in Mexican police custody, who died after a female officer was seen in a video kneeling on her back.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said 36-year-old Victoria Salazar Arriaza had been subject to “brutal treatment and murdered” after her detention on Saturday by four police officers in the tourist resort of Tulum on the Caribbean coast.
An autopsy showed Salazar’s neck had been broken.
“It’s a situation that fills us with sadness, pain and shame,” Lopez Obrador told a regular news conference that was dedicated to defending the rights of women and featured video by speakers including French President Emmanuel Macron.
Salazar’s killers would quickly face justice, Lopez Obrador said, vowing that there would be “no impunity.”
Autopsy findings showed Salazar died from spinal fracture caused by the rupture of the first and second vertebrae, the attorney general’s office of Quintana Roo state said.
The office on Sunday opened a homicide investigation into Salazar’s death, leading to the arrest of three male officers and one female officer at the scene. The four were on Monday charged with probable involvement in femicide.
“The level of force was carried out in a disproportionate, immoderate way and with a high risk to life,” the office said.
