Surveillance footage captured the final moments of a mother’s life before a female cop knelt on her back and pinned her neck to the ground, crushing her vertebrae and killing her in Mexico.
One of the videos obtained by TV-station Milenio shows Victoria Salazar, 36, pacing back and forth inside an Oxxo store in Tulum, waving an empty water jug in the air and banging it against a stand on Saturday afternoon.
A second security camera video obtained by a local reporter showed the Salvadoran migrant mother-of-two obstructing the doorway moments before exiting the shop and throwing her hands up.
Moments later, four police officers assigned to the Tulum Municipal Police stopped Salazar and placed her under arrest after responding to disorderly conduct call. However, bystanders recorded the force that was utilized by the cops in handcuffing the migrant woman.
The female law enforcement agent, identified as Veronica V. can be seen in the cellphone video restraining Salazar by placing her knee on top of her back and a male cop appeared to place the handcuffs on Salazar.
Veronica V. subsequently shoves her right hand on to Salazar’s neck and presses it against the sidewalk.
Tv-station Milenio obtained footage from a surveillance camera from a convenience store that Victoria Salazar visited moments before she died in police custody Saturday in Tulum, Mexico. The 36-year-old woman can be seen in the video waiving an empty water jug before she left the store and was arrested by cops following a report of disorderly conduct. The Salvadoran migrant was pronounced dead after a female cop knelt on her back and pinned her neck to the ground, crushing her vertebrae
Four cops in Tulum have been charged with the murder of Salvadoran migrant and mother-of-two, Victoria Salazar (pictured)
Police officers Veronica V. (left) and Juan C. (right) are among the four cops who have been charged with murdering Salvadoran migrant Veronica Salazar in Tulum on Saturday
Tulum Municipal Police officers Miguel C. (left) and Raul L. (right) on Monday were among the four agents detained and charged with femicide following the death of a 36-year-old Salvadoran mother of two teenage girls
A female police officer is captured on video kneeling on top of Victoria Salazar in Tulum on Saturday
Separate footage shows a cop who had just arrived telling one of the arresting officers, ‘She is breathing.’ The agent snapped back and told him, ‘Now, now, look she is breathing… she moved the mouth.’
Witness video also shows the female law enforcement agent attempting to move an unresponsive Salazar.
Later on, three cops lifted her from the ground and placed her body on the back of a patrol pickup truck.
Veronica V., along with officers Juan C., Miguel C. and Raul L. were each charged with one count of femicide and placed in pre-trial detention Monday.
Nesguer Méndez, the director of the Tulum Municipal Police, was also relieved of his duties.
A police officer is seen pinning Victoria Salazar’s neck to the ground before she was handcuffed
Victoria Salazar has been living in Mexico for five years after obtaining a humanitarian visa. She leaves behind two daughters, aged 16 and 17
Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador promised to seek justice for Salazar while speaking to reporters at his daily press conference at the National Palace in Mexico City on Monday.
‘She was brutally treated and murdered,’ López Obrador said. ‘It is an event that fills us with pain and shame.’
Demonstrators – mostly women- were seen gathering outside the Tulum Public Ministry building and laid down on the ground during a moment of silence to highlight Salazar’s death in custody of the local police.
Salazar has been living in Mexico after leaving her home in the western city of Sonsonate five years ago to look for better opportunities and escape the area’s violence, her mother Rosibel Arriaza said.
Cops assigned to the Tulum Municipal Police stand next to the body of Victoria Salazar, who death was caused by a fracture vertebrae due to the excessive force that was applied by the police, according to a state attorney general’s summary of a medical examiner’s report
The single mother-of-two entered Mexico through the southern city of Tapachula, near the Guatemala border, and requested and received refugee status. Mexico’s National Immigration Institute that Monday.
Salazar’s brother, René Olivares, told newspaper El Universal that the family was receiving assistance from the El Salvador Human Right’s Prosecutor’s Office to file a lawsuit against Mexico over her murder.
‘Anyone who has lost a loved one can understand the pain felt and more so under the conditions that it happened to my sister,’ Olivares said.
The family has been in contact with the Mexican government for the return of Salazar’s daughters, Francella Yaritza, 17, and Estephanie Michelle, 16, to El Salvador.
Salazar never mentioned plans of migrating to the United States, according to Olivares.
‘The situation in the country for years has been quite deplorable due to the violence, the lack of jobs and decent wages that unfortunately force thousands of people to migrate from El Salvador to other countries,’ Olivares said.
‘She was one of the thousands of migrants who go to other countries in search of better opportunities. But unfortunately she had to live that misfortune.’
Attorney General Óscar Montes de Oca said that a report by the medical examiner’s ‘identified a fracture in the upper part of the spinal column produced by the rupture of the first and second vertebrae, which caused the loss of the victim’s life.’
Montes de Oca added that ‘the police technique of body control applied and the level of force used was carried out in a disproportionate and moderate way and with a high risk to life since it was not in accordance with the resistance of the victim, which caused a deceleration with the rotation of the neck, thereby violating the provisions of the National Law on the use of force.’
The incident is similar to the death of George Floyd who died in Minneapolis in May 2020.
Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was apprehended for allegedly using a counterfeit $20 bill to make a purchase.
Derek Chauvin, who was one of the four law enforcement agents who responded to the call, was seen on video kneeling on Floyd’s neck for almost nine minutes. Chauvin’s trial in the killing of Floyd is underway.
