MONTERREY, Nuevo Leon — A 9-year-old boy is fighting for his life while two other underage illegal immigrants from Central America are recuperating in a local hospital. A Mexican police officer shot them– thinking they were cartel gunmen fleeing in a vehicle. The boys were not part of a drug cartel but were part of a group of illegal immigrants trying to make their way into Texas.
The incident took place after a Chevrolet Suburban ran two police checkpoints, according to information provided to Breitbart Texas by the Nuevo Leon Attorney General’s Office. The inspection areas had been set up along the Teran-China highway which connects the southern part of the state with the Texas border. Municipal police officers Jose Luis Martinez Canela and Enrique Fabela Guerrero began a pursuit of the fleeing SUV.
In an attempt to stop the vehicle, 28-year-old Martinez Canela fired 10 shots. As a result of the shooting, the underage males and one man who had been riding in the vehicle were inured. One of the boys was identified as 9-year-old Omar David Velazquez Aguilar from Honduras. The boy was airlifted to a hospital in Monterrey for a gunshot wound to the chest.
Carlos Miguel Velazquez Aguilar, 6, received some superficial injuries to his head and remains at a local hospital with his aunt Duna Maria Aguilar Agueta. The woman said that she and her two nephews had travelled from Honduras in an effort to get to the border in an effort to cross illegally into McAllen, Texas.
Emergency medical personnel also treated 14-year-old Andy William Tovara Bautista and German Tovara Pacheco who had also been injured.
Law enforcement sources consulted by Breitbart Texas revealed that just minutes before the fatal chase, there had been a gun battle in the city of Linares, just 15 miles away. Preliminary information points to the officers having been warned about the possible presence of fleeing gunmen.
In the aftermath of the shooting, Martinez has been arrested and charged with of abuse of authority and injury to a child. The Public Safety Director from the city of General Teran, Enrique Sanmiguel resigned from his post immediately after the shooting.
Editor’s Note: Breitbart Texas traveled to the Mexican States of Tamaulipas, Coahuila and Nuevo León to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities. The writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that operate in those areas including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and in their original Spanish. This article was written by Tony Aranda from Monterrey, Nuevo León.
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