I Couldn't Even Imagine That They Would Kill Us

by John Gibler

  “A compañero is down!”

  In that moment all of the compañeros that were at the front of the truck ran; they all ran. I was about two meters from the bus. There were about ten of us that ran to the bus and I was able to jump inside the door at the very end, landing on top of the other compañeros. I don’t even know where the cop came from, but he shot me in my left knee. I don’t know if it hurt or didn’t hurt. I just jumped inside the bus. Then, I went to the first seat and lay down and said to a compañero:

  “I think they got me.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, they got me,” I said and grabbed my leg and just saw blood. I dragged myself toward the back of the bus, to the last seat at the back. Compañeros asked me:

  “Camarada, are you okay?”

  “I’m okay,” I said, “don’t worry about me, but if the police come inside the bus we can’t give up, if they take anyone, they’ll have to take us all.”

  JOSÉ ARMANDO, 20, FRESHMAN. About five of us went out to put a T-shirt under the compañero Aldo’s head because he was still moving, we could see him move and we went to put something under his head because he had already lost so much blood. That was when they shot at us more intensely, and we took cover behind the squad truck. Aldo had fallen behind the truck. We took cover behind the wheel, all of us pressed together, and then we ran back to the space behind the first bus. The police had been coming closer to us. They were coming to take us away. Everyone was erasing all their contacts form their cell phones because we thought they were coming to take us—like they always do when they repress us—off to jail or the police station where they go through our cell phones. So, that’s why we were erasing all our contacts. That’s what we thought would happen. That or that they’d kill us all right there.

  During the time we were in between the two buses another compañero started dying. He fell to the ground because he already had some kind of a lung illness. He fell, he was having trouble breathing, and we shouted out to the police for them to call an ambulance, but no. So we called the ambulance and we explained to them where we were and why we needed an ambulance. We told them that we were being shot at, that they should send the ambulance as fast as possible because otherwise the compañero would die, and that they needed to take Aldo as well.

  EDGAR YAIR, 18, FRESHMAN. Like I told you, we had thought that they wouldn’t shoot directly at us. I mean, we thought they were shooting at the ground or something like that. But then we saw the compañero hit with a bullet to the head, and he fell to the ground. There were about eight of us trying to move the truck. Only three of us realized that the compañero had been shot in the head. The other compañeros didn’t realize what had just happened. With all the adrenaline they didn’t realize, until we screamed to them to stop pushing the truck, because it was almost right on top of the compañero. We screamed loudly for them to stop, that a compañero had been wounded, but they couldn’t hear us because of the noise of the gunshots and all the yelling. They didn’t understand what we were saying. Finally we gestured to them and they realized that the compañero was on the ground, bleeding from a gunshot to the head. We wanted to lift him up, but instead of letting us, the police shot at us more intensely, firing rapid bursts of shots.

  We ran to a place between the two buses. A number of compañeros took shelter there, we were maybe twenty-seven there, I think. And we were there for a long time, almost two hours. We screamed to the police that we were unarmed, that we had nothing to hurt them with. We screamed for them to stop shooting at us, because if you leaned out just a bit, they shot at you. They didn’t feel the slightest pity seeing us all sad and afraid. We were all really nervous, really scared by everything that was happening, seeing how our compañero was still lying out in the street, convulsing. We wanted to go get him, but the police wouldn’t let us, they shot at us. At last an ambulance arrived.

  MIGUEL ALCOCER, 20, FRESHMAN. They got off the bus to move the truck out of the way so we could get out of there fast, leave Iguala. That was when we heard the first shots and Aldo went down. Now they were shooting to kill us. They were no longer shooting in the air, but at us. The compañeros hid between the first and second buses. A number of us were still in the first bus, standing. I and ten or so other compañeros were about to get off the bus when a cop saw us and shot straight at us. He stood right out in front, like this, and opened fire. I threw myself back inside the bus. One compañero got hit in the leg and screamed. I thought they had killed him, that he had been hit, screamed, and had fallen. All my compañeros said that he had been killed but no, in that same instant he called out for help. We helped him get to the back of the bus and wrap his leg. And we stayed there.

  We spoke out to our friends down between the two buses that we were inside the first bus. The compañeros were also taking shelter there because if the police saw you so much as peek out they shot at you. The police wouldn’t let you even look around the corner of the bus. The police had posted themselves at opposite street corners and from there were shooting and shooting at my compañeros. And we were stuck inside the bus. We thought that they’d come for us and they’d take us to jail. We already assumed that we’d just be taken to jail. And there we were all lying on the floor. Some compañeros were crying because we were being shot at. Then I heard that my compañeros in the back were shouting out to the police that we were students from the teachers college and that we were unarmed. And the police shouted back that they didn’t give a fuck. They said:

  “You are all about to be fucked.”

  And, well, I think that my compañeros, the ones who were crying, felt even more helpless hearing the police say that. And, in all honesty, we were really scared because they were shooting straight at us. And the compañeros shouted out for the police to call an ambulance for the compa who was wounded. One cop told us that we had no idea where we were. He said:

  “Sure, maybe they’ll find your compañero, but dead, or maybe they’ll never find him.” He said that to us.

  All my compañeros screamed at the police to calm down. And still the police shouted to us:

  “Throw out your weapons!”

  And we were like, what weapons are we going to throw out if we don’t have any? As one compañero said:

  “This is absurd, we should have been armed so that at least one of them would have been cut down, and we wouldn’t have been the only ones dying.”

  ERNESTO GUERRERO, 23, FRESHMAN. As we arrived at the Iguala Periférico a squad truck cut us off. We couldn’t get around it, and a bunch of municipal police trucks were following us. They corralled us, they shut us in. Immediately, a number of compañeros on the first bus, we decided to get off the bus and push the squad truck. When we got off the bus the first compañero to get to the truck was Aldo. I came up behind him. We started pushing the truck and the gunshots started. Immediately they hit Aldo in the head. I turned and saw him. A pool of blood formed and I screamed to my compañeros: “They hit one of us!” Another compañero came up and we tried to pull Aldo behind the truck, but the police machine-gunned us. We couldn’t help him. At first we thought he was dead. A group of about twenty of us took cover between the first and second buses. The others weren’t able to get off the first bus and stayed in there. They ducked down so as not to be seen by the police. We had nowhere to go. They were shooting at us from the front and from behind. Those of us who had gotten off the bus took cover between the two buses. The compañeros on the third bus, the Estrella de Oro, were surrounded. The police held them all at gunpoint and started to make them get off the bus and lie facedown on the street with their hands behind their heads.

  After a while a Red Cross ambulance came for Aldo. We saw that he had been moving and called the ambulance. It came, took Aldo, and the police kept aiming their guns at us. If you moved, they shot at you. If you spoke, they shot at you. In other words, you couldn’t do anything without them shooting at you. The municipal police were firing whole clips at us. And then after shooting they’d t
ake the time to pick up the shells. I shouted:

  “Why are you picking up the bullet shells?” Well, because they knew the bullshit they were doing. And they mocked us, they laughed, they aimed at my compañeros being arrested and at us.

  And then a compañero who suffers from a lung condition had a crisis. He had had a lung operation before and he was dying on us there. His eyes were more gone than here. He was fading and we called another ambulance. The operators came out with the ridiculous story that they didn’t know where we were.

  “I don’t know where that place is,” they told us, “we went and didn’t see you all, we couldn’t find the address.” That ambulance never arrived. Squad truck 302 arrived.

  EDGAR YAIR, 18, FRESHMAN. When we were all bunched together between the two buses, a compañero suffering from a lung problem had some kind of crisis with his lungs, and so he fainted. It was like he was having a heart attack, or who knows. We carried him and laid him down on the ground so that the police could pick him up. And the police, instead of picking him up carefully because he was sick, grabbed him like a dog, dragged him, and threw him in the back of a squad truck and drove off with him.

  COYUCO BARRIENTOS, 21, FRESHMAN. I was going to get off of the bus when I looked toward where a compañero was lying in a pool of blood, convulsing. A compañero next to him tried to help him when a bullet whizzed right by. The other compañeros were still trying to move the truck out of the way so that we could keep going. They didn’t see that the compañero had fallen almost under the truck. They almost pushed the truck over him. The others shouted out to them to stop, that there was a compañero down on the ground. They were able to stop them from pushing the truck, but what they couldn’t do was move the compañero who had been shot, because the police were still firing on them. The police didn’t stop firing. Those compañeros had to leave the wounded student there and run to take cover behind the bus. And the police started shooting straight at us then. There were a number of bullet holes in the windshield. Another compañero and I were about to get off, standing on the edge of the stairs when the police started to shoot at us there in the doorway. If I hadn’t pulled him toward me he would have been hit too. I pulled him and we both fell to the floor. I shouted to the others still on the bus not to try to get off, but to run towards the back of the bus. Everyone was all tangled up. As best I could, I started jumping toward the back, jumping over the seats and hearing bullets pass by my body. Luckily none of them hit me.

  I fell between the seats, and the others who were up front leapt and stepped over me. It was like that, one jumping over another, the other stepping on someone else, all of us rushing to the back of the bus. And in those circumstances, it makes sense. We were really afraid, and you try to escape as best you can. We were all taking cover. One compañero told us that a bullet had grazed his leg. We asked those close to him to check him out. But he said that he was okay, that the bullet had only grazed him, that he was fine, that it wasn’t a big deal.

  The police kept shooting at us. The only thing I thought to do was call the compañeros back at the college, those on the committee. I have their cell numbers. I called:

  “Compa, we are getting fucked, the police are kicking the shit out of us. They are shooting at anything that moves! They already killed . . . they hit one compa. He’s convulsing and bleeding to death. Get over here! We need help!” The compañero didn’t understand. Like he was in shock. He didn’t react.

  “Fuck man,” I said, “This is Coyuco, I’m Coyuco the freshman. You’ve all got to come, the police are attacking us, we don’t have any rocks. They’ve got us corralled near an Aurrera. Get here as fast as you can! Somebody’s wounded. Who knows how many more wounded there are behind us. They stopped some other compañeros and they’re taking them into some kind of building. The police won’t stop shooting.”

  I couldn’t see well where we were. I didn’t know the name of the street yet. And you could still hear the gunshots from the police. Some police left, and others arrived. After a bit I saw an ambulance come, but the police sent it back. After that, a bit later, it came back again and that was when, I think, that they took the compañero who was wounded.

  There was another compañero who had had a lung operation about a month earlier, I think. And he, maybe from all the adrenaline, I don’t know, or all the fear, the fright, he was also convulsing. He had a panic attack. They told the police that another compañero was hurt, that they shouldn’t be, you know, assholes, and that they should help us. And, well, the police stopped shooting, they relaxed a bit, so the compas could show them the wounded compañero who needed help. And what we saw was how the fucking cops grabbed him like an animal. They dragged him along by one hand and one foot. When they put him in the back of the squad truck, they tossed him like an animal, like he was some sack of flour. They took him away. The compañeros were able to see that it was squad truck number 302.

  ERICK SANTIAGO LÓPEZ, 22, SOPHOMORE. I was riding in the third bus, the Estrella de Oro. The police were shooting at us. I got off three times with a fire extinguisher to throw at them. At that point they didn’t shoot me. I was incredibly lucky. And that was when we saw police with different uniforms. Because in all the testimonies it just says that the municipal police participated. They never talked about the federal police and the state police. I was standing up in the front of the bus, next to the driver. The driver, who is taller than me, was the one who shook up the fire extinguisher and gave it to me. He shook it up and said:

  “Dude, throw this at them. It will explode, and then you all can get out of here, and that way I’ll be able to get out of here too.”

  I was able to throw it at the police, but in the instant that I threw the extinguisher, that was when they shot me. I stood next to the driver, in the door. I was able to stick my hand out, like this. Just when I threw the extinguisher like this, that’s when I took the bullet. I threw the extinguisher at the police and in the same instant the police shot me in my right arm. They shot me and that was when we realized we were done.

  Since I was one of the organizers that night and was riding with the compañero Cochiloco, that’s when I said: “You know what, call the secretary.” At that time the secretary was La Parca, The Reaper. We called La Parca. We waited about ten minutes on board the bus, then Cochiloco told the driver:

  “Open the door, we’re going to give ourselves up. We can’t keep fighting, they’ve already shot my friend.”

  The compas were terrified. They didn’t know what to do. My arm was hurting me. All the tendons were destroyed. The five tendons connecting my fingers were destroyed. All this part of my skin was destroyed. When we got off the bus the police stood to the side of the door and started to pull us out and to put our hands behind our heads. Since the driver was the first one off, they pulled him aside, off to a corner away from the rest of us. I’d been shot, but they treated me just like all the others; they put my hands behind my head. And they started to throw us down on the ground.

  “Shut up, you son of a bitch,” they said, “you are beyond fucked.” And after a bit they said: “If you are all such bad-asses, then let’s see it now, fucking ayotzinapos.” Just imagine, there they were with their guns and all of us with nothing at all. That’s when one loses hope, because they are all armed and if you move they shoot you. We stayed like that. I remember all my compañeros were down on the ground. My compañero Cochiloco tried to stand up to them and they beat him. He was tough, in that he wasn’t going to just surrender. So they grabbed him and beat him in the stomach with the butt of a rifle. When they knocked him to the ground, then they started beating him in the face.

  “Kill the one you shot in the arm,” one cop said to another, “put a bullet in him.” The cop came up to me and stuck his weapon, an AR-15, right to my head. He put the gun against my head, and maybe he thought about it and said: “And if I kill him?”

  I thought to myself: “Well, I guess this is it.” And then, just seconds later, he moved his rifl
e away from my forehead, right here next to my temple, and then he himself called an ambulance. When he called the ambulance I was aware of everything that was going on. The guy who was next to me had wrapped a bandanna around my arm when we were still on the bus. We called him Botas, Boots. When I was thrown on the ground, that guy was crying. He saw it when they put the gun to my head. He saw it when they hit me in the ribs because I had tried to lift myself up. He knew that if I tried to act tough, the cop would kill me. During this time I saw a federal police uniform, on the back it said FEDERAL POLICE. And there was a state police officer next to him.

  When they tried to make me lie back down, I just lay on my side. I was looking out toward the Periférico. Two civilians arrived and got out of their car. I don’t know if they were the leaders. They weren’t wearing masks. One of them had a pistol. They were giving orders and the others were obeying them.

  The cops grabbed me and put me in an ambulance. They went through all my things. They took a small black cell phone that I had with me. And when they put me in the ambulance, that was when they started to put my compañeros in the different squad trucks. I could see it. None of the kids said a word. They were crying. I couldn’t see all the others, but they were all lying in the street. Not one of them spoke. Not one of them said: “Why are you doing this to us?”