Explosions leave police officers injured in Mexico City

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A police officer grimaces in pain as he is aided by paramedics after being injured by an explosive device thrown by protesters during clashes outside of Mexico's Attorney General's Office in Mexico City, Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022. The demonstrators were marching ahead of the anniversary of the 2014 disappearance of 43 students of a teachers’ college in Iguala, Guerrero. Multiple police were injured by the explosion and loaded onto ambulances. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano) ASSOCIATED PRESS

An explosion occurred outside Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office on Thursday, September 22, injuring police as protesters demonstrating ahead of the anniversary of the 2014 disappearance of 43 students clashed with officers clad in riot gear.

Those injured by the explosion were loaded onto ambulances. Broken glass and blood were visible.

Members of a bomb squad cordoned off the area. One undetonated object that an explosives technician recovered appeared to be a small pipe bomb — a tube with two capped ends.

Mexico City’s police department said that 11 police officers were injured by shrapnel from fireworks and some suffered bruises. They were all taken to hospitals and the injuries were not considered life-threatening.

The protest was just one of a host of activities planned in advance of Monday’s 8th anniversary of the students’ disappearances. Protests that include relatives of the disappeared students have usually remained peaceful.

Thursday’s demonstration started that way too, with chants and speeches. Most of the protesters boarded buses and left before a small group that stayed behind clashed with police.

Some masked protesters threw rocks and launched bottle rockets into police lines. Others spray-painted areas around the building with demands for the missing students’ safe return.

The police bunched together, crouching below their plastic shields, and were engulfed in smoke.

“I was in the entrance to my store when four bombs went off like bottle rockets which is what they launched at the Attorney General’s Office, toward the windows,” said 19-year-old Jose Rivera Cruz, who sells clothing to one side of the office. “There was smoke and they closed the metro bus station (across the street). And most of the police were running and trying to get to the patrol cars and the ambulances.”

As more police arrived to help the injured and secure the area, the protesters left, he said.

Paramedics evacuate a police officer injured by an explosive device thrown by protesters as they clashed with police outside of Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office in Mexico City, Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022. The demonstrators were marching ahead of the anniversary of the 2014 disappearance of 43 students of a teachers’ college in Iguala, Guerrero. Multiple police were injured by the explosion and loaded onto ambulances. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)ASSOCIATED PRESS

On Sept. 26, 2014, local police in Iguala, Guerrero abducted 43 students from a radical teachers’ college. They were allegedly turned over to a drug gang and never seen again. Three victims were later identified by burned bone fragments.

As we published in The Mexico City Post, on Wednesday, September 21st, activists vandalized the exterior of Israel’s embassy in Mexico City. Mexico is seeking the extradition from Israel of another key figure in the investigation of the students’ disappearances.

Source: Excelsior

The Mexico City Post