want to come back. We told him:
“Let’s go now, driver!”
But the driver said no, that he had to get authorization, and well, he was just stalling. That’s when we called our compañeros so they would come help us. We were just eight kids, with the guy from the committee, nine, I think. So we called the ones who were out on the fundraising action.
ERICK SANTIAGO LÓPEZ, 22, SOPHOMORE. During that time a number of strange things started to happen. We were already out by the Iguala tollbooth. A red motorcycle started driving by. And a bit later a Policía Federal truck passed. . . . That truck went through the tollbooth to the other side and started to stop all the buses. The police started to make the passengers get off of all the buses that arrived—Estrella, Futura, Costa Line, Diamante, any bus that approached. They started to stop them. So they weren’t going to let us grab any buses. After a bit, my compañero, a guy who was in the committee and had stayed back around Huitzuco, he called my friend telling him that the compas had grabbed a bus out by Huitzuco, it was a Costa Line, but that when they got to the bus station they had been detained. They were being held there.
SANTIAGO FLORES, 24, FRESHMAN. We went to the Iguala tollbooth. We were hanging out with Churro, joking around. But at that time there were some police cars patrolling there, they were driving around and you know, I get a little scared just seeing them. What I did was look around to see where I’d run, thinking: “Okay, if they come after us, I’m going to run that way, head over that way, and grab rocks over there.”
Behind us there was a fence and on the other side there was some construction, there were a bunch of rocks over there, like bricks that were already broken up. I thought: “Okay, there are rocks over there.” But no, nothing happened. In fact, at the tollbooth, when the buses came up, they didn’t pass through the tollbooth. They turned around and went back because the police were making the passengers get off and the bus didn’t come through the tollbooth. We asked the passengers why the buses weren’t driving through, and they told us because the bus had broken down. We were there for a while. After a time the committee told us to get back on the bus, that we were going to the bus station.
CARLOS MARTÍNEZ, 21, SOPHOMORE. After night fell a number of federal police squad cars started driving by. They went by and what they did was to stop the buses before the tollbooth and make everyone get off. The people came through the tollbooth on foot and the police sent the buses back. The police did that with at least three buses. And we asked the people that were walking through:
“Hey, why did they make you all get off the bus?”
“The feds told us to get off and walk.”
We were on the Iguala side of the tollbooth and the feds were stopping the buses that were arriving in Iguala from Acapulco, from that direction, Tierra Colorada. The police stopped all the buses that came from that direction. The passengers all got out and walked, and the buses turned around and left. So we said:
“You know what? We need to go, because we’re not going to be able to get anything here. We’ll come back tomorrow, or we’ll come up with something later.”
We were making that decision to leave when a compañero who had stayed with the other bus out by Huitzuco called Bernardo and said:
“Hey, I’m here at the bus station, they’ve got me.” We told him:
“Okay, wait there, we’re gonna come get you right now.” We all got back on the bus and we went to the bus station.
GERMÁN, 19, FRESHMAN. I lost track of my friends in the bus station. I didn’t see them again. Once we got to the station we all spread out and I didn’t know what happened to them. I got on the bus. We pulled in, I got off the bus, and then, all of a sudden, I turned around and got back on. The gunshots started around the plaza. And we shouted out to them to leave us alone, that we were on our way out of town. We kept driving through town and there were gunshots and gunshots and the compas who were running got back on the buses. They had been trying to talk with the police, so they would stop blocking us and let us go, because we really wanted to get back to the school, fear had taken hold of us by that point.
JOSÉ ARMANDO, 20, FRESHMAN. We grabbed another three buses and were on our way out. Some headed out toward the south, an Estrella de Oro bus and an Estrella Roja. We exited toward the north to get to the Periférico; the other three buses went that way. The first bus was a Costa Line, then another Costa Line, and the third bus was an Estrella de Oro. That’s where we were. I was on the third bus when all of a sudden, as we were leaving the bus station in a caravan, the police pulled up and started shooting at us. We didn’t have anything to protect ourselves with, because, you know, we’re students. We got off the buses and wanted to defend ourselves with rocks to make the police get out of the way so we could keep going. I got off the bus. Most guys on the third bus didn’t get off, they stayed on the bus because they were afraid. But a few of us got off, grabbed some rocks and threw them at the police trucks so they’d move out of the way and we could keep going.
IVÁN CISNEROS, 19, SOPHOMORE. We got to the bus station. They had the compas trapped there. We busted them out. Once we were in the station Cochi said that we needed to take some buses quickly. The drivers were there. We grabbed two Costa Line and an Estrella Roja. The Estrella Roja went one way out of the station and we went out another way, the way we had come in. We went straight through the center of Iguala, straight all the way to head out toward the state capital. The other compas had gone out the station exit. On the way, an Estrella de Oro bus went off another way. So we were just the two Costa Line buses and one Estrella de Oro.
ALEX ROJAS, FRESHMAN. The compas arrived. We talked to the guy in charge of the station. He said he didn’t want any trouble, but the bus we were on was out of service. I think it needed some kind of liquid, I don’t know, and that’s why we couldn’t take it. The compañeros said that was no problem, that they could get the liquid. Then we saw that the guy had started talking on the phone, and the bus station’s security guards were on their radios. We figured they were letting someone know what was going on. What we did was leave as quickly as possible with the two Costa Line buses. I remember that the Estrella de Oro bus was parked out on the street, and we had the two Costa Line buses we meant to take back to the school with us. The compañeros started to get on the buses. I was going to get on the first Costa Line, but then I changed my mind.
I asked a paisa from the committee if we were only going to take those two buses or if we were going to grab another one. He told me we were going to take an Estrella Roja too. And so we did, we took the Estrella Roja. The two Costa Line buses went out first, a bit before, one or two minutes before, I think. Close enough that they went in a caravan with the Estrella de Oro bus. So those three buses left the station, but what I’ve heard is that the driver of the first bus took them deeper into Iguala. Instead of taking them out to the Periférico Sur, toward Chilpancingo, he took them deeper in toward the detour to Tierra Caliente, he was taking them in that direction. But we left the station in the Estrella Roja, going by the Aurrera3 there in the city center, direct and fast to get to the Periférico Sur.
CARLOS MARTÍNEZ, 21, SOPHOMORE. Once we were there in the bus station a compañero told us to grab some buses.
“We should take the buses from here, let’s grab them and go.”
It was already night. We left in the buses. I got on the first one together with some others, maybe six or seven compañeros got on that bus. From the bus I could see that our compañero Bernardo was down there organizing, he was coordinating the activity. I wanted to get back off the
