The death on May 25 of the African-American George Floyd in Minneapolis due to police mistreatment was the trigger for a wave of massive anti-fascist and anti-racist protests throughout the US and also globally. For a sympathetic effect, something similar happened in Guadalajara (Mexico) following the arrest, torture and murder of the young worker Giovanni López by the police of Ixtlahuacán de los Membrillos (Jalisco). This crime was committed on May 4, that is, more than a month ago! As incredible as it may seem, this case was reactivated by a tweet from the famous filmmaker Guillermo del Toro that he sent to the governor of Jalisco Enrique Alfaro “it is not an abuse of authority. It's murder. The senselessness, the madness that a murder occurs for a matter of public health” Later, actress Salma Hayek also asked for justice for Giovanni. The event spread to the mass media and on social networks with the hashtag #Justice for Giovanni, which included a video showing how the police violently arrested the young bricklayer. In this way Giovanni became the Mexican George Floyd.
The day Giovanni López was killed, no one gave the greatest importance to this horrific event, not even the media reported it, although his family reported the case by publishing a video showing the young man detained by the police for not wearing a face mask. . In the state of Jalisco, Governor Alfaro decreed that the health protocols to combat the coronavirus were going to be strictly followed and that therefore it was mandatory to wear a face mask. Anyone who does not use it could be detained by the police and penalized with a fine. Apparently Giovanni resisted arrest and wanted to record the police officers' faces to denounce them. Between desperate cries of help me! The police commander threatened him by saying “I'm going to kill you” - as confirmed by witnesses - they took him handcuffed to the cells of the security station. “He was very aggressive and under the influence of drugs.” The family went to ask the mayor of Ixtlahuacán de los Membrillos, Mr. Cervantes Aguilar, to release Giovanni, to which he replied that “he would be returned alive at 10:00.” hours of the next day” “but first I had to apologize.” And to top it off, the mayor tried to bribe his brother Christian with 200,000 pesos to give him the video recorded on his cell phone where the incriminating evidence against the police officers under his orders was left. “Be careful not to make a fuss because things can get very dark,” he warned in the best mafia style. The next day his family showed up at the appointed time at the police station to receive Giovanni, but they were told that he was no longer there because he had suffered an “accident.” Or rather, that the police had “got too far” and They had taken him to the civil hospital. Then, they went to the hospital where, upon asking about him, an official from the Ixtlahuacán city council told them that “Giovanni was dead.” In an agonizing state, he was taken to the civil hospital where he unfortunately died due to head trauma. Of course they were going to deliver them, but in a wooden box!
And we repeat that this happened more than a month ago and at that time no one was concerned about this tragic incident, not even the Jalisco Human Rights Commission, the Prosecutor's Office or the Secretary of Security. In other words, he went completely unnoticed because at the end of the day he was just another victim among the hundreds of deaths that occur monthly in the entity. As judicial officials are not working due to the coronavirus, investigation folders are piling up on the shelves.
His brother Christian López expressed in an interview with Grupo Reforma: “I am here to ask for justice and raise my voice to all the people of Ixtlahuacán and all of Jalisco. We ask that you support us. If they have a case like my brother's, they should also report it. Don't stay silent. This cannot go unpunished, a death like several that have occurred. I ask that justice be done. I represent my brother and all the people who have died at the hands of the police. Let the political leaders, the governor of Jalisco, and the municipal president of Ixtlahuacán, show their faces.”
Based on these compromising statements, the entire family has had to leave Ixtlahuacán de los Membrillos after receiving multiple telephone messages in which anonymous voices threatened them with death. At the moment his whereabouts are unknown.
On March 15, 2019, 19 bagged bodies were found that were extracted from a sewage canal in said Jalisco municipality. The Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel, one of the strongest and most powerful criminal groups that exists in Mexico, operates in this region and is fighting with other criminal organizations such as the Nueva Plaza Cartel to expand its area of influence.
Anyone would think that if the demonstrations did not take place in the US over George Floyd here in Mexico nothing would have happened because cases like this occur daily and barely transcend public opinion. And they are part of an endless history of violence, murders, torture, forced disappearances and unjustified deaths by the Mexican military and law enforcement forces. Abuses of power that seek to eradicate President López Obrador's 4 T's with his philosophy of “hugs, not bullets” There is serious irresponsibility on the part of the prosecutor's office that inhibits itself and covers up these perverse cases of human rights violations. Silence and impunity reign, no one wants to speak and make accusations because at any moment they could suffer some sinister retaliation.
But in the case of Giovanni, the same phenomenon occurred as in 1968 with the Tlatelolco massacre when Mexican students took to the streets to demand democracy, freedom and the end of government authoritarianism inspired by the French May 1968.
The crime of Giovanni López has been adopted as the icon of human rights groups and radical activists who have made him the new martyr of their cause.
After the riots that broke out and continue to break out across the United States due to the death of George Floyd - within the framework of Black Lives Matter - denouncing police brutality, injustice and racism, on June 4 via WhatsApp He called a demonstration in Guadalajara to demand justice for Giovanni López. Mexico could not be left behind and to prove it, young anarchists from ACAB (all police officers are bastards), feminist, anti-system, anarchopunk, Molotov, Anonymous, anti-capitalist communists, morenoist and leftist collectives poisoned with fury and rage took to the streets amidst cries of Justice for Giovanni! Killer police! The uncontrolled mass headed to the Government Palace of Jalisco and, finding no police resistance, began to vandalize this historical monument that was miraculously saved from being burned.
The riot police had withdrawn on orders from the governor, supposedly to “avoid provocations.” Then, the excited mobs went on a rampage against this symbol of state power, kicking down doors, destroying stained glass windows, lamps and everything in their path. The façade was completely covered in graffiti alluding to the anarchist and anti-system rebellion. As if that were not enough, at the point of sticks, axes and irons, they destroyed two police patrol cars abandoned by the agents, complete with weapons and ammunition, which when several Molotov cocktails were thrown at them, they burned until they were reduced to charred scrap metal.
The riot resulted in more than 20 young people arrested and extensive material damage. The escalation of demonstrations promises to continue until their demands are met: that the prisoners be released, the mayor of Ixtlahuacán de los Membrillos be arrested and prosecuted (he is still free and in office) and the State Prosecutor be dismissed. For now, in an attempt to calm the tsunami of indignation, they have arrested the police officers involved in the death of Giovanni López and, in addition, the governor has promised that justice will be done. “An investigation file has been opened before the judicial authorities” - which over time are generally archived. More than a month after the murder, action is taken on the matter!
Such a violent event had never occurred in this city. The next day the protesters moved to the State Prosecutor's Office and Casa Jalisco, the governor's place of residence, to continue with the protests. In other cities in Mexico, mobilizations were also held in solidarity with Giovanni López. On the second day of protests, the capital of Jalisco recorded arbitrary arrests of protesters who mobilized peacefully, as well as attacks on journalists. The authorities acknowledged that the arrests were carried out by agents of the State Prosecutor's Office. Governor Alfaro told the press that “they rather belonged to organized crime.”
Jalisco is a state that has a bloody history of violence resulting from the drug war between criminal gangs: too many missing, too many executed, tortured, beheaded, bagged. As expected, in the end Giovanni López's family has had to leave the town and go into exile because they ran a serious risk of being kidnapped or disappeared. In Mexico the probability that a crime will be reported and clarified is only 1.3%. This, together with corruption and police brutality, has created a rarefied atmosphere of discontent among public opinion at the national and international level.
Article from Carlos de Urabá international journalist.
