Mexican president condemns death of Salvadoran woman in police custody in Tulum

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Monday, March 29th, sharply condemned the weekend killing of a Salvadoran woman in Mexican police custody and vowed to bring the perpetrators to justice.

Lopez Obrador said the woman, identified as 36-year-old Victoria Salazar Arriaza, had been subject to “brutal treatment and murdered” after her detention on Saturday by four police officers in the city of Tulum on Mexico’s Caribbean coast.

“It’s a situation that fills us with sadness, pain and shame,” Lopez Obrador told a regular government news conference.

A video published by news site Noticaribe showed Salazar writhing and crying out as she lay face down on a road with a policewoman kneeling on her back while male officers stood by.

The video later showed Salazar’s prone body lying on the road before officers put it into the back of a police truck.

https://vimeo.com/530122688

The killing of the woman sparked widespread outrage on social media and swift calls by Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele for the perpetrators to be punished.

“Let’s not forget that it was not the Mexican people who committed this crime, but some criminals in the Tulum police,” Bukele said on Twitter late on Sunday.