Juan Carlos Padilla Aranda was a family man and had been selling tamales for 30 years. On Monday, November 23, he was on his way to the Monday tianguis in the city of Celaya, Guanajuato, accompanied by his wife and daughter, when a RAM van without plates prevented them from passing through. On the grounds that they had an apprehension order against him, they began to struggle to get him into the vehicle. And they did it.
After a few hours of not knowing anything about Juan Carlos, his family was notified that he had been dropped off at the general hospital in the city, and that he showed signs of physical violence. Soon after, his death was confirmed.
Agents of the Guanajuato Criminal Investigation (AIC) were responsible for this uprising, which, the victim’s relatives claim, was conducted without a rebuke order document in between.
In a video that Fátima Padilla, the merchant’s daughter, uploaded to social media, you can see the moment when two agents are struggling on the ground with Juan Carlos, while he screams for help.
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“Calm down, boss, it’s a apprehension order,” he is answered as he is handcuffed, between women’s cries and a girl’s cry.
After getting him into the vehicle, his relatives did not know of his whereabouts, so they went to the offices of the Municipal Police and the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Region C; however, nowhere did they provide them with information.
When they went to celaya Guanajuato General Hospital, they learned that the van that intercepted them hours earlier had left Juan Carlos bloodied and beaten.
In a video that Fátima Padilla shared in networks you can see how the agents left the vehicle at the hospital emergency gates and retired in two different cars; both without plates.
Near the time of his arrival, Juan Carlos’ daughter and wife were notified of his death. As the young woman wrote on her Facebook profile, she had to come in and recognize her father’s body, with clear signs of physical violence.
The family blames the courts and calls for justice for Juan Carlos’ death.
https://www.facebook.com/fatima.padilla.35/videos/3747386255318195/
“Let them do justice to my husband”
“It wasn’t the way to lose my husband. It wasn’t the way his life was taken away,” says Rosa Yolanda Zamudio, 52, in a telephone interview with Political Animal.
Zamudio is afraid to make statements. He doesn’t want to hinder the investigation, he says. He only has one request: “let this be clarified, that you do justice to my husband.”
She was the one who recorded one of the videos in which officials are seen, who go in a vehicle without plates, violently to their husband. “It was very difficult,” he says.
Juan Carlos Padilla, 54, was born in Celaya and raised his two children, 30 and 29 years old. A year before starting his food sales business he married Rosa Yolanda Zamudio, originally from Mexico City.
“She was a very cheerful person, very affectionate, she had no problems with anyone,” Zamudio said, still in shock after witnessing the aggression that cost her husband her life.
“He worked all day. He’d get up at 5 a.m., make tamales, sell them and arrive home at 11 a.m. All day making tamales,” he explained. According to the woman, the “little free time” she enjoyed was spent playing basketball or football with her children.
As his children prepare the details of Padilla’s wake and last farewell, his wife remembers him as “a very cheerful man they were always looking for to give advice to.”
“He was a very good person, very intelligent,” he says. Among his aficiones, music, especially the songs of Pedro Infante. “All day he was nuts, singing, talking to girls,” he recalled.
Juan Carlos Padilla will be veiled on Tuesday, and the burial is scheduled to take place in Celaya on Wednesday, November 25. So far, the authorities had not handed over the victim’s body.
What have the authorities said?
On the afternoon of monday, Guanajuato State Attorney General Carlos Zamarripa Aguirre announced through his official Twitter account that elements of the State Criminal Investigation Agency had made an apprehension order amid opposition conditions. He commented that the officers were arrested and investigated to clarify the facts surrounding the death of the “accused”.
The accused lost his life. The officers have been arrested and their action will be investigated in order to clarify the mechanics of the facts.
2/2
— carloszamarripaag (@carloszamarr) November 24, 2020
For its part, the Attorney General’s Office for Human Rights of the State of Guanajuato (PDHEG) confirmed the beginning of the complaint file, 103/2020-CI. It also requested reports from the Director-General for Investigations of the State Attorney General’s Office and the Director of the General Hospital of Celaya.
Derived from the events in which a man lost his life this afternoon in Celaya, PDHEG initiated the 103/2020-CI complaint file of its own motion and requested a report from the Director-General for Investigations of the @FGEGUANAJUATO as well as the Director of the General Hospital of Celaya.
— PDHEG (@PDHEG) November 24, 2020
With information from Alberto Pradilla and am
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