A woman who did not want to give her name for fear of reprisals, holds up a photograph of her late 15-year-old daughter Erika Gomez Gonzalez, at her home in Arcelia, Mexico, in this Sept. 15, 2014, photo. The woman says she witnessed her child’s death when army soldiers fired first at an armed group at a grain warehouse on June 30 in the town of San Pedro Limon, Mexico.ARCELIA, Mexico – A woman says she saw Mexican soldiers shoot and kill her 15-year-old daughter after a confrontation with a suspected drug gang even though the teenager was lying wounded on the ground. Twenty others also were shot and killed in rural southern Mexico after they surrendered and were disarmed, the mother told The Associated Press.
The Mexican government has maintained that all died during a fierce shootout when soldiers were fired on in the early morning of June 30. That version came into question because government troops suffered only one wounded, and physical evidence at the scene pointed toward more selective killings.
The witness said the army fired first at the armed group holed up at the warehouse. She said one gunman died in the initial shootout, and another gang member and her daughter were wounded. The rest of the gunmen surrendered on the promise they would not be hurt, she said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
After the gang surrendered, the girl, Erika Gomez Gonzalez, lay face down in the ground, a bullet wound in her leg. Soldiers rolled her over while she was still alive and shot her more than half a dozen times in the chest, her mother said. Another suspected gang member was injured in the initial attack.
“A soldier stood the kid up and killed him,” said the witness, who said she had gone to the warehouse the night before to try to retrieve her daughter from the gang she had apparently joined.