Breathe
By Sofía Guadarrama Collado
An elderly woman, wearing a long pink sleeveless dress, a black scarf and tennis shoes, gets out of a gray car, accompanied by two of her children. She looks at the horizon while caressing a revolver. With her right hand she wraps the handle, inserts her index finger in the trigger guard and touches the trigger, while her left hand holds the barrel.
His son and daughter also look down the street. Suddenly a shot is heard. He reaches into his right hand into his sheepskin jacket, pulls out a pistol and becomes defensive as he steps back. The elderly woman, on the other hand, opens up. She wields the gun with both hands. She approaches a man dressed in a gray T-shirt and hoodie, who is holding a cell phone. They exchange a few words and she fires.
The woman filming from the second floor screams, "He hit my father-in-law!". The man falls to his knees. Another woman in a black T-shirt comes to his aid. Then another young man, dressed in a white T-shirt and red shorts, comes to his aid. He stands behind the wounded man, but even that does not save his life. A bullet instantly knocked him down. The man in the gray T-shirt, seeing that his relative was shot down, summons his strength from the depths of his being, stands up, despite being wounded, and throws himself against the woman in the pink dress, at the same time that another tries to snatch the gun from her. The man in the gray T-shirt strikes furiously at the old woman. At that moment, the son and daughter of the woman in the pink dress come to their mother's defense. The woman in the black T-shirt also gets into the fight, while the woman recording the video screams in terror and calls for help. But she doesn't stop filming. Which raises a doubt in my mind: Is it to have evidence for the authorities or because of that insatiable modern vice of recording videos and uploading them to social networks?
All this happened in Chalco, State of Mexico. The woman in the pink dress was identified as Carlota. According to her testimony, the people she killed invaded her house and she went to take them out at gunpoint.
Second case, a 14-year-old girl trusts her uncle-in-law, her father's sister's husband, plays video games with him, gives him all her trust and one night she sleeps over at her aunt and uncle's house. She sleeps in the bedroom that will be her cousin's, who is about to be born. Suddenly, she wakes up frightened to feel a heavy body on top of hers. The man covers her mouth, tells her not to scream, that he is going to tickle and rape her. At the end, he tells her that her aunt will not believe her if she tells him and threatens to harm her unborn cousin. The mugging is repeated once or twice a month for three years. Until one day, the grandfather realizes what has happened, talks to his son and the latter kidnaps his brother-in-law and kills him.
Third case, an eight-year-old girl asks permission to go play at a friend's house, but does not return. That same afternoon, she is reported missing. The next day, her lifeless body is found on the Taxco-Cuernavaca highway. A neighbor of the family is a suspect. The authorities go to the house, arrest the presumed culprits and take them away in a pickup truck, but the angry crowd assaults them, pulls them out of the truck and lynches them. The woman dies from the blows and the other two are seriously injured.
Fourth case, farmers and inhabitants, tired of constant extortion and threats from La Familia Michoacana, decide to confront their aggressors with machetes, sticks and work tools. Eleven alleged members of La Familia Michoacana and three local inhabitants are killed.
It is impossible to describe in a few words the quagmire of pain, rage and impotence that these people have lived through. To judge them lightly is as unjust as the ordeal they had to endure. Our empathy is useless to them when justice is unattainable. For often the established legal procedures seem to be designed to solve nothing. And therein lies the genesis of the problem. That is why many people decide to take justice into their own hands without resorting to the authorities.
How can we prosecute those who decide to punish, take revenge or correct a situation they consider unjust, when justice in Mexico is far from fair? How can we criticize them when only 0.3% to 5% of crimes in Mexico are punished?
In 2023, 6,718 investigation files were reported for property theft ("parachutists") nationwide. According to the Encuesta Nacional de Victimización y Percepción sobre Seguridad Pública ENVIPE, the number of unreported crimes exceeds 90%).
In 2023, the National Public Security System reported more than 1.9 million registered crimes. However, that is not the worst; 93.3% of crimes are not reported or do not result in a formal investigation.
According to the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System (SESNSP), 21,718 cases of sexual abuse were reported in 2023. However, this figure only reflects officially registered cases. The real number of sexual abuses in Mexico (the black figure), could be 200,000 each year.
It is important to note that, according to INEGI's National Survey of Victimization and Perception of Public Security (ENVIPE), more than 90% of sex crimes go unreported. According to Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity (MCCI), between 2012 and 2022, nearly 330,000 sexual crimes were reported, but only 8.6% were solved. In other words, 91% of rapists are still on the streets and enjoy impunity.
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