The Security Secretariat of Mexico City (SSC) announced on Tuesday the arrest of three police officers from the municipality of Venustiano Carranza, assigned to the Congress area, in the center of the Mexican capital, following the death of Erick Omar Chávez Díaz, a young 21-year-old businessman arrested on November 4 and brutally beaten by officers and who, days later, was found dead. A citizen’s complaint opened the investigation and the viewing of security cameras made it possible to identify the officers responsible for the beating. “Investigations continue to determine police action and determine responsibility,” capital police said in a fact sheet. The institution also announced the dismissal of the director responsible for supervising the agents.
These arrests occurred after the release of several videos, recorded by security cameras and by residents of the center, in which at least five officers are observed arriving in approximately four patrol cars at the moment Erik Omar is arrested. According to this material, the police beat and dragged the young man and put him back in one of the patrol cars, while a woman, recording from a nearby house, tells what happens: “Look at these sons of bitches, this is how they should behave when they really steal or when someone needs it,” she says. “They’re telling him they’re going to give him a good warm-up right now again.”
The images correspond to the early morning of November 4, in Soledad street, in the center of Mexico City, where Erick Omar was walking with his dog Cabo, before being approached by the police. The family of the young man, a trader in the La Merced area, reported his disappearance that same night, alerting the local authorities. A few days later, where he was arbitrarily detained. His body, according to relatives, appeared brutally beaten. “They killed my nephew, they tortured him,” one of his aunts said in front of media cameras.
Erick Omar was buried this weekend in the Panteón Dolores, about 15 kilometers from where he died following police brutality to which he was subjected. His family reported being threatened when he began echoing the videos his neighbors and friends began sharing with them about the arrest.
In the information sheet published this Tuesday, the authorities assured that the investigation is still ongoing: “The SSC reiterates its commitment not to tolerate any act contrary to the Code of Conduct and Ethics that governs this Institution, all illicit acts in which police elements are involved will be investigated and sanctioned, no acts of corruption or harm to citizens will be permitted.”
According to several pollsters, Mexico is one of the Latin American countries that distrusts its police the most. An investigation from 2022, by journalists Eduardo Buendía and Tamara Gidi entitled Police brutality in Mexico: a phenomenon without limitsdocumented that between 2015 and 2020, at least 33,750 complaints of acts of violence committed by the police were registered in the country. Only 1% of complaints were processed by the justice system, resulting in 172 convictions. “The impunity rate is 99.5% for crimes committed by the police or members of the armed forces,” they said.
The Mexican capital is no exception when it comes to cases of police brutality that are recorded throughout the territory. Even if not everyone is lucky enough to be documented by cameras or witnesses, those who manage to get noticed demonstrate what happens in various corners of the city. In 2023, for example, authorities in Mexico City suspended five police officers for abuse of power and extortion. Video recorded by a hidden camera showed officers planting evidence and beating detainees in a home in the Cuauhtémoc mayor’s office.
