There is evidence of recent unlawful police killings in Mexico said [press release] Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] on Wednesday. The report suggests that police action which left eight civilians dead in the city of Apatzingán on January 6, and 42 civilians and one police officer dead in Tanhuato on May 22 was an “excessive use of force against unarmed civilians.” HRW collected witness reports that said police officers were shooting civilians after the initial confrontations were over. Daniel Wilkinson, managing director of the Americas Division at HRW said, “[w]hile the government insists that police acted appropriately in both cases, what witnesses describe clearly involves extrajudicial killings.” The State Attorney General’s Office [official website, in Spanish] is handling the investigation into both incidents, and according to HRW the government has denied all allegations of unlawful use of lethal force and continues to portray the victims as aggressors.

The need for police reform in Mexico is attracting international attention. Earlier this month, Mexico’s attorney general Arely Gomez Gonzalez released [JURIST report] a 54,000-page file detailing the Mexican government’s investigation into last year’s disappearance of 43 students [JURIST report]. While the problem of disappearances is widespread in Mexico, no particular case has drawn more attention than that of the 43 students. Also in October, in response to the students’ kidnapping, UN Rights Chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein urged [JURIST report] the Mexican government to cease using their military as law enforcement and replace the current force with well trained police officers.