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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | November 2006 
Oaxaca Authorities Deny Initial Reports
 Associated Press
| | Members of the Popular Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO) carry Brad Will, a cameraman, who was shot during a shooting near a barricade in Oaxaca City October 27, 2006. (Reuters/Daniel Aguilar) |
Authorities in the southern state of Oaxaca insisted that an American journalist-activist killed during violent protests last month was not shot at point-blank range as they had indicated earlier.
The assertion made Thursday further muddies a case already dogged by conflicting statements and accusations by protesters that authorities are trying to protect their own in the death of Bradley Roland Will.
Will, 36, who wrote dispatches for the Web site Indymedia.com, was filming a group of leftist protesters when they clashed with a group of armed men in Santa Lucia, a working-class town on the outskirts of Oaxaca City. Both sides fired, but it is not clear who shot first. Will was shot in the abdomen and died on the way to hospital.
Police later arrested Santa Lucia town officials Abel Santiago Zarate and Orlando Aguilar in the killing. The men were allegedly part of group of officials and off-duty police officers confronting the protesters.
At a news conference last week, however, Attorney General Lizbeth Cana Cabeza said state investigators had found that both of the bullets that killed Will were fired from the same gun and one of them was fired at point-blank range — evidence signaling that the leftist protesters whom he was with, and not the town officials, may have shot him.
A spokesman for the protesters said at the time that authorities were fabricating evidence to win the officials' release.
Yet in a news release issued Thursday, the state Attorney General's office said that "neither the state attorney general nor any official from the department has told the news media that the shots fired against Bradley Will were fired at close range."
There was no immediate explanation for the discrepancy.
Further confusing the case, a man who was identified as having driven Will in his pickup truck to an awaiting ambulance told the Televisa television network late Thursday that Will had only one gunshot wound, not two.
Oaxaca City, formerly popular with tourists for its nearby ruins, mouth-watering Mexican cuisine, colonial architecture, and handicrafts, has been under seige for the past six months by protesters demanding the resignation of Oaxaca Gov. Ulises Ruiz, who they claim rigged the 2004 election and has used violence against his opponents.
At least nine people have died in the clashes, including Will.
Oaxaca, Mexico Update:
Battle of semantics and translations over Bradley Will murder investigation
Mark in Mexico - markinmexico.blogspot.com
There has been an interesting, but not too meaningful development in the murder investigation of the American reporter, Bradley Will. In a communique issued by the Oaxaca State Attorney General, she denied that anyone in her office or connected with the investigation used the term "quemarropa". Quemarropa means "point blank". It also means a line drive in baseball or a hard, flat throw in that same sport - "on a rope" is how we would put it.
And she may well be right. What the autopsy report states is that Will was shot twice from a distance of 1 to 3 meters (1 to 3 yards) and that the second bullet was fired into him 15-20 minutes after the first one and while he was still alive.
What we have here is a battle of semantics. A distance of 3 feet would be considered by most gun-totin' fascist NRA types (like, uh, yours truly) to be "point blank". It's pretty tough to miss a target any bigger than, say, a grapefruit, at a distance of 3 feet. Any distance closer would put the shooter in danger of injury from flying pieces of the shootee. I would doubt that the shooter(s) of Bradley Will were equipped with and wearing OSHA approved safety goggles.
So, if an English speaking reporter heard "1-3 metros", decided that was "point blank" and so wrote, and someone checked a dictionary and came up with "quemarropa", we have successfully settled this confusing non-issue.
Meanwhile, Attorney General Lizbeth Caña repeated her wish to turn the whole mess over to the federal Attorney General, the PGR. |
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