starting cocking their guns and aiming at us. And that’s when we got angry, because before, when we were asking for donations on the highway, the federal police would show up with the same attitude, cocking their weapons, but we would instantly tell them that we were students, and unarmed. And then the police would think about it and their commander or the person in charge would tell them to lower their guns. And so that’s what we did, it’s kind of like a truce, when we say: “We’re students, we don’t have any weapons,” and we show our empty hands in the air, that we’re unarmed, that was when, before, the police would lower their weapons and we’d have to start some kind of dialogue. That’s the way it had been before.
For example, the state police in Chilpancingo say to us: “Young men, you can’t grab vehicles like that, you have to come to an agreement with the bus companies and blah, blah, blah,” stuff like that. But at that moment, the police didn’t act like that. We said:
“We’re students, we’re unarmed,” but the police didn’t give a shit. They kept aiming at us and that’s when we heard the first gunshots from the back of the caravan. I told the others to get off the bus and grab rocks. We started pelting the squad truck that was blocking us. That truck took off, but we still heard gunshots coming from behind. They kept shooting, but I think they were shooting in the air. At that moment, we ran ahead to stop traffic from the side streets so that the bus could get through. All along the way we kept hearing gunshots, they popped in the air.
ERNESTO GUERRERO, 23, FRESHMAN. Leaving the bus station we made it about a block and a half when the first two police squad trucks came out of nowhere. At no point did they signal for us to stop, at no point did they try to speak with us, they simply started firing their weapons in the air. We were in a caravan of three buses: the two Costa Line buses that we had just taken, and an Estrella de Oro that was in the rear. I was in that bus, the third one. When we heard the gunshots, one of the sophomore compas who was with us said:
“Don’t be scared, paisas, they’re shooting in the air.”
But when we got off the bus we saw that they were not just shooting in the air, but also shooting at the bus, and they started aiming at us. That’s when we made the decision to defend ourselves. How? In the road there I found four rocks, and four rocks are what I threw. We didn’t have any choice. We had to defend ourselves with whatever was around, or let them kill us without putting up any defense. At least I’m of the opinion that if they’re going to kill me, at least let it be while I’m defending myself. And, well, I found four rocks and I threw four rocks. It was obvious that the municipal police wanted to take our lives. The gunshots were aimed at the bus and at those of us who had gotten off the bus. That was when we decided to get back on the buses. We ran a bit farther down the road. The Iguala police were still shooting at the buses. I didn’t find any more rocks.
How was I to defend myself? I ran. The third bus in the caravan closed its door. The second bus had its door closed too. I ran up to the first bus and that was when I was able to jump on. I stayed there in the entrance, by the door of the first bus.
ANDRÉS HERNÁNDEZ, 21, FRESHMAN. The police had already blown out the tires of the first bus, where I was riding. I realized this when a squad truck pulled out in front of us and parked there to block our way. All the police got out of the squad truck, hid around the street corners and shot at us. So what we did was run up to the squad truck to push it out of the way. We were pushing the truck when a second squad truck came within six or seven meters of us. It pulled up and the police shot at us, brutally, without thinking twice about it. They shot at us and that was when the first compañero, a student in my group named Aldo Gutiérrez Solano, fell. When we saw that he had fallen it enraged us. We wanted to escape, but the police were shooting at us, so we ran back to hide behind the first bus. In my case, I was there behind the first bus, taking shelter.
CARLOS MARTÍNEZ, 21, SOPHOMORE. We were driving along Álvarez Avenue. Through the window I could see the Periférico. We were so close to turning onto the Periférico when a police truck pulled in front of us. It was a municipal police Ranger-type truck. But something strange happened there. The squad truck pulled up with a guy driving it, and that guy got out, fled, and left the truck there, in contrast to the first time a police truck pulled in front of us and the cop driving then moved it out of the way. This time the cop left the truck there in the middle of the road. And so we got off the bus. I, Aldo, Malboro, a number of us got off the bus and tried to move the police truck. Imagine that this is the truck, here is the hood, and here is the back of the truck. I was here at the back trying to move the truck and Aldo was in front of me. We tried to move the truck out of the way. And then I heard when the shots began, loud. I ducked like this and when I looked at the ground that was when Aldo fell with a shot to the head and there was so much blood coming from the wound, too much blood, too much. I went into shock looking at his body for about three seconds; the shots were still ringing out and I just stood there, looking. Luckily, I wasn’t hit.
“Run,” we shouted, “run!”
We went to the space between the first and second buses. We stayed there throughout the shooting. Only those of us who were riding on the first and second buses took shelter there. We were about twenty compañeros between the two buses and there were police in front of us and police behind us shutting off any escape. They shot at us like you wouldn’t believe, there were so many gunshots, it was intense. At first I couldn’t imagine that they were shooting at us, I couldn’t even imagine that they would kill us. I thought the sounds were, who knows, bottle rockets or some kind of firecracker like that. But when I started seeing the bullets, the bullet shells, I realized they were going to kill us, I realized that they wanted to kill every single one of us.
Aldo was lying in the street for a long time. We started to call ambulances. We called 066 so they’d send ambulances. The number 066 is a federal number. It’s impossible for the federal government to say that they didn’t know what was happening, that the federal police didn’t know, because 066 channels information to the local branch of the federal police that is next to an army base.
SANTIAGO FLORES, 24, FRESHMAN. Farther down the road the police started coming out from the street corners. They started shooting at us again, and when we came up to a mini-Aurrera that was where a police truck shut us off. We got off the buses. We threw rocks at them, but the police got out of the truck and left it there in the middle of the street. We couldn’t keep driving, we were stuck. Other students told us to move the truck. I got off the bus, others got off the bus too. I don’t know if it was from fear or desperation, but we couldn’t move the truck. I remember that Aldo, the student who is brain dead, was there with us. I was in the front, at one of the headlights, pushing toward the back. There were about four of us there. Others were in back of the truck pushing it forward. I mean, I don’t know if it was because we were so scared or desperate, but some compas were pushing from behind and we were pushing from the front and none of us had a clue: they were pushing this way and we were pushing that way. We didn’t coordinate, you know, we didn’t know what to do. And another student was in the driver’s seat steering the wheel this way and that, but no way, we couldn’t move it. And that was when they started shooting at us, firing at us. More police trucks were arriving. And so what I did was put my hands behind my head like this, duck down and run. I wanted to throw myself to the ground because of all the shooting. You could hear the bullets whizzing by.
When we were getting to the space between the first and second buses I heard that the compas were shouting that one of us had been shot. “You shot one of us!” But the police didn’t pay any attention to them. They kept shooting and shooting. “You killed another one of us, you killed another, stop shooting!” But the police didn’t care. We raised our hands in the air to show that we weren’t going to do anything to them, that we surrendered, but the cops didn’t care. We asked them for help, saying: “Help us, he’s still alive!” Because a couple of compas said that they saw that Aldo was raising his hand, they
