Mob in Mexican Tourist City Beats Woman to Death

The woman was suspected of kidnapping an 8-year-old girl, who was later found dead
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Mar 29, 2024 2:00 AM CDT
Mob in Mexican Tourist City Beats Woman to Death
Women chant the word "justice" during a demonstration protesting the kidnapping and killing of an 8-year-old girl, in the main square of Taxco, Mexico, Thursday, March 28, 2024. WARNING: Some of the images that follow are graphic.   (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

A mob in the Mexican tourist city of Taxco brutally beat a woman to death Thursday because she was suspected of kidnapping and killing a young girl, rampaging just hours before the city's famous Holy Week procession, the AP reports. On the eve of Good Friday, men walk through the colonial streets of Taxco wearing hoods, whipping themselves or carrying heavy bundles of thorns in penitence. That and other Holy Week processions date back centuries in the old silver-mining town. The mob formed after an 8-year-old girl disappeared Wednesday. Her body was found on a road on the outskirts of the city early Thursday. Security camera footage appeared to show a woman and a man loading a bundle, which may have been the girl's body, into a taxi.

The mob surrounded the woman's house Thursday, threatening to drag her out. Police put the woman into the bed of a police pickup truck, but then stood by—apparently intimidated by the crowd—as members of the mob dragged her out of the truck and down onto the street where they stomped, kicked, and pummeled her until she lay, partly stripped and motionless. Police then picked her up and took her away, leaving the pavement stained with blood. The Guerrero state prosecutors' office later confirmed the woman died of her injuries.

The mayor of Taxco, Mario Figueroa, said he shared residents' outrage over the killing. Figueroa said a total of three people beaten by the mob—the woman and two men—had been taken away by police. Video from the scene suggested they had also been beaten, though the AP witnessed only the beating of the woman. The state prosecutors' office said the two men were hospitalized. Residents said they have had enough, even though the violence may further affect tourism. "We know the town lives off of Holy Week (tourism) and that this is going to mess it up. There will be a lot of people who won't want to come anymore," says one woman who was in the mob. "We make our living off tourism, but we cannot continue to allow them to do these things to us."

(More Taxco stories.)

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