I Couldn't Even Imagine That They Would Kill Us

by John Gibler

  JORGE HERNÁNDEZ ESPINOSA, 20, FRESHMAN. Around six in the morning I went to the taxi stand and got in a cab. I still didn’t know anything about what had happened. I had just heard the shots. That morning I got to my hometown. A compañero called me and asked how I was.

  “I’m okay,” I said.

  He told me that they had killed Chino, they had killed Chilango, and they had killed Fierro. That’s what we called them. So then I started crying. Before that I hadn’t cried at all, not once. I had just been scared, on edge, all that. It wasn’t until that moment that I cried.

  We had said to ourselves, okay, with the guys the police took there won’t be any trouble: tomorrow or the day after tomorrow we’ll go and get them out of jail, it won’t be a problem. We never thought . . . The first thing that came to mind was that the police were taking them to jail. Tomorrow or the day after we’ll get them out of jail. That they might beat them up, that they might torture them. But only that. We never thought, we never imagined that the police would disappear them. It was the twenty-eighth, that Sunday—because that Saturday the compañeros spent all day in Iguala giving declarations to state detectives and prosecutors and didn’t go back to the college until that night—it wasn’t until Sunday that they went to look for our compañeros in the jail and didn’t find them.

  ERNESTO GUERRERO, 23, FRESHMAN. They told us that the secretary general of the committee had gone back to the place where we had been attacked.

  “I’m going,” the teacher said.

  “I’ll go with you,” I said.

  But he took me to the state courthouse, because that’s where we were taking refuge. The state assistant attorney general directed several state police squads to take us through the streets of Iguala, gathering our compañeros who had hidden. Everyone had tried to hide wherever they could: some in the brush; some, thank God, had been taken into houses, people had opened their houses to them. Others had hidden in barren fields. Everyone hid wherever they could. So the state police went out with compañeros to take everyone to the state courthouse so that we would be safe, in a safe place. We started giving our testimonies. The person at the courthouse who took my testimony asked me:

  “And you all didn’t shoot?”

  “With what? Lend me your M-16. Let’s arm ourselves and if we run into those bastards, they can try and kill me while I am defending myself. But we didn’t even have rocks anymore. Now, how’s that supposed to work?”

  Even if we did have more rocks, bullets and rocks are not the same, they don’t compare. I mean, it would be an unequal confrontation, and you can’t call it a confrontation if the weapons are unequal. It really angered me that they would ask me that.

  At seven in the morning they gathered five of us together and said: “Compañeros, we need you to stay strong. We have a horrible picture to show you, something truly awful. We want you to tell us what you think.” They showed a photo and we saw the compañero Julio César Mondragón, the guy we called Chilango. His face was cut off and his eyes were missing. When I saw it I honestly couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe that it was my compañero, my friend. They found him at seven in the morning about three blocks from where it all happened. What we think is that as he was trying to escape, they found him, and took him because the autopsy showed that they’d skinned his face while he was still alive. They removed the skin of his face while he was still alive and he was still screaming when they took out his eyes.

  GERMÁN, 19, FRESHMAN. We got the news that they had found another body, a compa that we called Chilango. They cut off his face. They disfigured him. We just went into shock; we were traumatized, to tell the truth.

  ALEX ROJAS, FRESHMAN. We left the house at around five in the morning. The paisa from the committee asked:

  “Who was it last night who said they’d go look for the compañeros?”

  “Me.”

  “If you want, go have a look now. Walk around and see what you see, but don’t go too far, and be careful.”

  “Sure, no problem, I’ll go.”

  And I left the house, alone, at around five in the morning. I walked up to the edge of the neighborhood. Up there it was pretty much hillside and wilderness. I started to walk around and was calling out for them, not too loudly, calling out their nicknames. A couple of men came out.

  “Hey kid, what are you looking for?”

  “I’m looking for some compañeros that came this way.”

  “Ah, okay. No, they’re not here.”

  “Ah, okay, fine.”

  And there I was, calling out for them. I was walking around there looking for the compañeros for about twenty minutes. I had gone kind of far and then went back.

  “I didn’t see anyone,” I told the compañeros. “There are a bunch of houses but I didn’t see anyone. I was calling out for them, but they didn’t answer me.” So we went back down from that neighborhood. We went back down the way we had come up, chased by the police. Just like before, we were walking along Periférico and we saw another police truck. It braked. It was just one police truck and just stopped, we stopped too. Then it left. Then another federal police truck passed us. They just looked at us and kept going. And we were scared of the police trucks because we knew we couldn’t trust anyone, not the police, because they had shot directly at us. The paisa called another compa who said that they were riding with the state investigative police.

  “What? What is that? What do you mean?” the paisa said. “You’re riding with the police? Don’t you know they shot at us? That they were the ones who killed our compañero?”

  But the other compa was saying no, we could trust these because they were sent by the attorney general’s office. And just then, near Sam’s Club we saw the police truck. It stopped about fifteen meters from us, and we were, well, scared. We didn’t have anything. We started walking.

  The police truck stopped, the driver put it in reverse, and the state investigative police began shouting at us.

  “Boys, get in, your compañeros are with us, don’t worry, get in, don’t be afraid!”

  We did not want to get in that truck. Then I looked and saw a compañero from the school and he waved to us to get in the back of the truck.

  “Paisa’s in the truck,” I said, “get in.” Paisa was his nickname. We got in and were riding back there, scared, worried, hungry, tired, exhausted, and with the fear that they’d take us somewhere else.

  ANDRÉS HERNÁNDEZ, 21, FRESHMAN. Two days later, when the list was published in the newspapers, the first list with fifty-seven disappeared, I was on that list. They thought I was disappeared. I called my brother at the school and asked him to tell everyone that I was okay, that I wasn’t disappeared, that I was staying with my other brother. That’s why the list got smaller, other compañeros also got in touch with the school.

  RODRIGO MONTES, 32, JOURNALIST FROM IGUALA. He appeared Saturday morning. He had clear signs of torture. They had beaten him all around this part of his torso, his ribs. He had bruises all over his stomach, he had been hit there. It looked like they had been beating him, I don’t know, with clubs, because the bruises went all the way across his ribs, from one side to the other. And surely you’ve already seen the image of how he was skinned.

  IVÁN CISNEROS, 19, SOPHOMORE. It hit me hard when they showed me the photo of our compa Chilango. I was the one who recognized him.

  “This compa is Chilango,” I said. That’s what I told them when they showed me the photo. I recognized him because he was a buddy of mine. He had told me his story. There were a lot of rumors about that guy. Some compañeros from Tenería said that he had been expelled from there. He had also been at Tiripetío.

  At first they called him Tenebrio, the guy from Tenería. But I told the freshmen that he was no longer a Tenebrio, he was an Ayotzinapa.

  “He’s gonna be the Chilango,” I said, “no more Tenebrio: I don’t want to hear anyone call this guy Tenebrio, he’s Chilango.”

  He had already told me that he had a baby gi
rl and that he needed to go work to cover his family’s expenses. I think he had a job as a security guard, I don’t know where, but I think he worked with security in some way. He worked and helped support his family. What little he was able to make he gave to his family and came back here with just enough to pay for the trip. I told that compa that his past didn’t matter here, that we weren’t going to deny him the opportunity to study here. He made it through the trial week, he made it through it all. Here at the school he was really serious, but he also joked around, like you should.

  He had asked for permission to go work because his wife had just gotten out of the hospital and he needed to earn a bit to provide for them. It’s different having a family, so I supported that compa, I gave him permission. I remember well that he had asked for permission to go work that weekend. He told me that he needed to see his family, he needed to work for a few days. I told him no worries, man, it’s all good. But he wanted to go before October 2.

  “Look, let’s do this,” I said to him, “after the October 2 march you can go work, you can stay there in Mexico City and come back the following Sunday.” Personally, I really feel bad about that compa because, in all honesty, how to say it: if he had gone in that moment. . . .

  COYUCO BARRIENTOS, 21, FRESHMAN. A compa called us at around six in the morning. He asked where we were and told us that it was all over, that the student secretary general was with the state investigative police and a couple of soldiers. He told us to come out of hiding, that it was okay now. We asked the owners of the house if they could open the door for us and we thanked them for giving us shelter there. We left.

  The guys on the roof came down; they were soaking wet. One guy had to take off the T-shirt he was wearing because he couldn’t take the cold anymore. We met up with the other compañeros. The first thing I did was to ask who had been killed. The secretary confirmed that it was Chino. I didn’t know what to think. I wanted to confirm it myself, to go see, but they told me that they had been taken to the morgue. It was during that time that I turned on my cell phone. When I was getting in the police truck I got a call from Chino’s cousin asking me how he was, asking if he was with me, how he was, what had happened. I couldn’t say anything. Not a word came out. I didn’t know what to say. I felt so powerless, so useless. His cousin kept asking me. He wanted to know. The only thing I said was that I was sorry, that I couldn’t do anything.

  “What the fuck,” he said, almost crying. “Cut the bullshit!”

  “I couldn’t do anything, man,” I said.

  He kept asking me for Daniel. Until I told him that I’d been told that Daniel had been taken to the morgue. There was silence and then he hung up. The state police took us to the courthouse there in Iguala. When we got there his cousin called me again. I still didn’t believe, didn’t want to believe it, neither of us wanted to believe that it was Daniel. By then his cousin was crying; he asked me if it was true, if I had seen him myself. I said that I hadn’t seen him, but that the secretary had confirmed it. If it had been up to me I would have gone back. One compañero told me that he had been standing next to Daniel and was able to see where he was lying in the street crying for help, and that he wanted to go back but those assholes were still shooting. He said that he saw Daniel with blood on his neck. I was very upset with that compa.

  “Why didn’t you tell me? If I had known, if I had seen, I wouldn’t have given a fuck if they shot me, I would have gone back for him,” I said.

  While we were there at the courthouse, they gathered us together and started to compile information about what had happened. We shouldn’t talk, the police couldn’t do anything to us, they couldn’t arrest us because this time we were the victims, we weren’t guilty. We tried to calm ourselves down. It would all be over soon. My mind went blank. I didn’t register what was happening all around me. I just saw the other compañeros getting called over to give their testimonies. They took them into some offices and they took a while to come back out. The other compañeros were waiting in this big room. I didn’t want to give my testimony. I was far from all of them. I didn’t want to have anything to do with all that.

  When things calmed down a bit I got another call from one of Daniel’s other cousins. This cousin is older than both Daniel and myself and is an Ayotzinapa graduate. He called to ask about Dani. Like I tell my compañeros, it takes a serious set of balls, and held tight, to give news like that. I don’t wish that on anyone. And that cousin told me not to lose my grip, that it wasn’t my fault, that if I couldn’t have done anything, then there was nothing I could do. He said that things happen for a reason and that their family had my back.

  We were all waiting for the compañeros to finish with their testimonies. Everything was quiet. In the distance you could hear the voices of some secretaries, workers there at the courthouse asking questions, taking notes, running around. And I want to express my gratitude to a social worker, a woman who was supporting us, lifting our spirits, from the moment we arrived there.

  “Stay strong, boy, don’t let these animals see you cry,” she told me. “Show them you are braver than they are; these animals don’t deserve to see you all cry.”

  The sun came up. We still couldn’t process what was happening. People started moving around a lot, going in and out of the waiting room area. The compañeros in charge were running here and there asking who was missing, who was wounded, who was there, how many of us had left. I walked outside. I had heard that someone was going to identify the bodies. I went to ask the secretary:

  “Are you going to the morgue?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t give a fuck. I’m going with you.”

  He looked at me for a second and then said: “Alright man, I’ll let you know in just a minute.”

  We were waiting for the authorities to take us. It took them a little while. A couple of compañeros bought some things to eat and were sharing them with all of us. Then some agents showed up asking if we wanted to go identify the police, the ones who had attacked us; they said they had located all their squad trucks. They just wanted us to go point them out, so that it would be legitimate. Of all the compañeros who had already given their testimonies, no one wanted to go. Another compañero, a sophomore, came over to us.

  “We have to go identify those fuckers, because we can’t just let this go,” he said. “If we don’t identify them now, they’ll be back. And then the deaths and the disappearance of the compañeros will all have been in vain.”

  “I’ll go,” I said.

  We talked to some other compañeros who decided to go as well. We got ready and they took us to the police station. They explained to us that we would go in to identify them. We were waiting for them to bring all the police officers together. We got into a state police truck with the windows rolled up; we wore ski masks. In the entrance to the police station parking lot we saw one of the police trucks that we had pelted with rocks to repel the attack. Then we saw the rest of the trucks toward the back of the lot. Others were not there. We got out of the truck and everyone stared at us; they didn’t know what was happening. They took us into a room, behind a window with Venetian blinds. They made all the police at the station walk by us; they called out the names and the number of their squad trucks of all the police that were on duty that night. Right away, we were able to identify one of the police, the first one. The minute we identified him a state detective came up to us and said that the one we identified was the municipal police station chief. The state detective told us that this guy and the director of the municipal police were tied to . . . that they were the ones who did whatever they pleased in Iguala. The state police had been watching them, but couldn’t do anything until we identified them, he said. But then he told us very clearly that the only one they could do anything to was the station chief, not the director. He said that they were connected to the DIF director and the sicarios. We kept identifying the other police officers. At first we were able to identify nineteen. Then they brought the othe
rs who were in the same patrol trucks. Then we left. We went back to the courthouse and were there all day.

  JUAN PÉREZ, 25, FRESHMAN. Honestly, I couldn’t sleep because I saw how my compañero went down; I saw how they shot him in the head; I saw how he fell close to me. His body was right here. He went down, went down: that moment stayed in my mind all night and I couldn’t sleep. I stayed awake. I imagined that he was still right there.

  ALEX ROJAS, FRESHMAN. They gave us a cup of coffee and a piece of bread. That was the only thing we’d eaten since the day before. We were all tired and scared. You could see the sadness and worry on all the compañeros’ faces. A woman, I don’t know what her position was there at the courthouse, came in.

  “We have information that there are some young men near the highway that goes to Tierra Caliente,” she told us. “We want to go pick them up and bring them back here, but we need some of you to go with us so that they’ll trust us and will want to get in the police trucks and come back here.”

  They had started to look for everyone like that since early in the morning, perhaps four or four-thirty in the morning. They started looking for compañeros in different parts of the city. Some were near the bridge, others were in some other place, and that’s how they went about finding and picking everyone up. After a while, maybe around seven or eight, we didn’t hear anything else about the others.

  There was supposedly a brigade of state police out looking for more compañeros, but no one else came; they said they couldn’t find any more students. Since it was possible that more compañeros were hiding, the secretary asked the state investigative police, the ones in charge there, how many students had been arrested, because we clearly saw the municipal police arrest our compañeros. They called Barandillas, the Iguala jail, and the people there said they didn’t have any information about any arrested students. That was when the concern, the question came up: where are our compañeros? If the municipal police clearly put the students in their patrol trucks and arrested them: where were they? We started making a list of everyone at the courthouse. A number of compañeros were giving their testimonies. There were a number of compañeros with bullet wounds, or wounds where bullets had grazed them. One student had a graze wound on his foot, another across his chest, another on his arm and another, I think, on his knee. That’s when the uncertainty hit us.