Tultepec, Mex.— “We no longer know if they are rockets or bullets,” say residents after the direct attack that ended with eight members of a family, three women, four children and a man, who were killed inside their house while they were sleeping. They all had gunshot wounds to the head.
Residents of La Cañada, especially the closed Mazahua, heard detonations on Sunday night. Others heard screams and asked for the support of the municipal police and ambulances.
The bodies, in pajamas, of Doña Rosa’s grandchildren and daughters, as well as her son-in-law, whom the attackers were presumably looking for, were left at the site, in what is presumed to be a settling of accounts, since there were no indications of robbery, Mexican authorities confirmed.
Among the victims was Doña Rosa, who died hours later at the Vicente Villada hospital in Cuautitlán; two daughters and four grandchildren, three of them girls, as well as her son-in-law who is no more than 30 years old.
One of the deceased mothers tried to cover her little girl with her body, but the traces of the attack show that the murderers killed each victim one by one, including a baby of no more than two years, who was left dead on his bed. The agents who entered the house found the casings of three different weapons: nine .40-caliber automatic; 14 caliber .380, and seven of a 9 millimeter.
The Attorney General’s Office of the State of Mexico (FGJEM) reported that it began an investigation into this multiple homicide and reported that they are analyzing whether there are cameras in the area to try to locate the attackers.
Agents searched houses in the area or on the street for surveillance devices, but found none. The closest one is located 300 meters away.
After the murder of the family, which he considered to be a “circumstantial situation”, the Morenoite mayor Sergio Luna Cortés met with members of the National Guard and the Cuautitlán and Homicide prosecutor’s offices, as well as with regional commands of the state police, to coordinate the investigation and surveillance in the area.
Only this year “we remember another eight executions, among them, a headless person in the La Piedad neighborhood,” said residents of Tultepec. However, the list of intentional homicides in this area bordering the municipality of Melchor Ocampo could reach 20 victims so far this year.
According to data from the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System (SESNSP), up to February Tultepec registered five homicides with a firearm and one with a knife, while in the same period of 2021 there were only three. In the first two months of the year, the SESNSP registered 594 intentional homicides in the State of Mexico, of which 338 were due to bullet wounds.
In the first 10 days of the month, 66 intentional homicides were registered in the entity, according to the daily count prepared by the working group in which the Ministry of Citizen Security, the Ministry of National Defense, the Navy and the Prosecutor’s Office participate. General of the Republic (FGR).
To this must be added the at least 12 homicides resulting from the attack on a family in Tultepec and another in a bar in Ixtapaluca. Thus, in the first 11 days of April, there were 78 intentional homicides in the entity, an average of 8.9 each day.