Mexico's President Feels 'Shame' for Murder of Salvadoran Woman

Image of Victoria Salazar during her arrest, Tulum, Mexico, March 27, 2021. | Photo: Twitter/ @MichelleOnofre

Published 29 March 2021

A Mexican police officer placed his knee on the neck of a migrant and choked her to death.

Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) on Monday expressed "shame" for the police officers who killed Salvadoran migrant Victoria Salazar in Tulum on Saturday.

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"She was subdued by police... brutalized and killed. This fact fills us with sorrow, pain, and shame," he said.

Her murder was denounced on social media through a video showing a police officer placing his knee on the neck of the victim, who could barely moan.

"We only ask for justice. Let the full weight of the law fall on those who did this," El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele said.

AMLO promised that those responsible will be punished. So far, however, the police have not yet been able to clarify why they subdued the 36-year-old woman whose death leaves two orphaned daughters.

Human rights defenders compared this act of police violence to the murder of George Floyd, who was also suffocated to death by police in May 2020.

In the Mexican case, however, the death of the Salvadoran migrant represents a hate crime that synthesizes racism, xenophobia, and machismo. The autopsy revealed she died as a result of the rupture of her first and second vertebrae.

"The injuries... coincide with the subjugation maneuvers applied to the victim during her arrest and before her death," outlet El Universal pointed out.