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Mexico: #Ayotzinapa backlash in Mexico Bronco

The 43 students are still missing. Here are today’s headlines:

Mexican Tied to Missing Students Is Killed
Death of Benjamin Mondragón, Alleged Head of Guerreros Unidos, Comes After Protests

The alleged leader of a Mexican criminal band that prosecutors accuse of colluding with police in the disappearance of 43 college students was killed on Tuesday during a shootout with security forces, federal officials said.

The security forces had tracked Benjamin Mondragón to a house in a suburb of Cuernavaca, just south of Mexico City, where the battle took place, officials said.

The officials said Mr. Mondragón led the Guerreros Unidos gang, which they said collaborated with police in the September shooting deaths of six people and the subsequent disappearance of the college students—whom most officials presume to be dead—in Iguala, a city in Guerrero state.

The death of Mr. Mondragón, known as Benjamón, or Big Ben, came a day after teachers and students burned and vandalized parts of Guerrero Gov. Angel Aguirre’s office and the state’s local legislature, demanding the return of the missing students and the governor’s resignation.
. . . .
But the incident in Iguala is a reminder of what Mexicans call “Mexico Bronco,” or “Untamed Mexico”—a wild land rife with poverty, cronyism and violence. Entire states and hundreds of cities and towns are in the grip of drug gangs and corrupt police and city halls, security experts say. The rule of law is shaky: Fewer than 3% of homicides are solved, officials say.

Protesters Burn State Building in Southern Mexico
Students, Teachers Clash With Police as Anger Flares Over Disappearance of 43 Young People

Missing Mexico students: Iguala eyewitness account

The search continues in Mexico for 43 students who have been missing since 26 September following clashes with the police. Omar Garcia is one of the students who witnessed the deadly clashes in which six people died. Here he describes what he saw that evening and what he thinks may have happened to his 43 fellow students.
. . .
We think the municipal police took them – what we think happened is that they kept them somewhere and then, as we say, “disappeared” them – like so many thousands of others in this country who are missing.

The Twitter tag is #Ayotzinapa

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