When fake news kills: Lynchings in Mexico are linked to viral child-kidnap rumors
When fake news kills: Lynchings in Mexico are linked to
viral child-kidnap rumors
By Patrick J. McDonnell & Cecilia Sanchez Los Angeles
Times Sep 28, 2018
ACATLAN DE OSORIO, Mexico — Ricardo Flores’ goal was to
study hard, become a lawyer and earn enough so that his parents could return
from the United States — the destination of multitudes from this impoverished
corner of south-central Mexico.
“Ricardo always said that once he was working, he was
going to tell my mom to come back, because he missed her so much,” recalled his
younger brother, Jose Guadalupe Flores, 16.
That dream came to a violent end one afternoon last month
after rumors began circulating on social media and the WhatsApp messaging
service that a pair of robachicos, or child snatchers, were on the prowl.
An enraged mob attacked Flores, 21, and his uncle,
Alberto Flores Morales, 56, beating them before dousing them with gasoline and
burning them alive on the street outside the police station here. The pair had
been mistakenly suspected of child abduction, authorities said.
“It was like a great spell had overtaken the people,”
said Lidia Palacios, a handicrafts shopkeeper who witnessed the linchamiento,
or lynching, as such mob killings are known in Mexico. “They were yelling,
‘Kill them! Kill them!’”
The barbaric episode — reminiscent of mob killings in
India fueled by viral messages — illustrates how in an era of proliferating
smartphone use, rumors looped on social media and messaging platforms such as
WhatsApp can generate hysteria and vigilante justice.
Mob attacks are nothing new in Mexico, where rampant
crime, ineffective policing and a pervasive sense that lawbreakers go
unpunished fuel citizen outrage. Cellphone video of townsfolk pummeling
cornered suspects accused of robberies and other misdeeds is a regular feature
on TV news.
In some high-crime areas, handwritten billboards warn
“delinquents” and “rats” that they will face street justice.
At least 25 people have been slain by mobs in Mexico this
year, including victims beaten to death and burned, and 40 more have been
rescued, according to Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission, a
quasi-governmental watchdog group.
Law enforcement officials fear that hoaxes spread on
Facebook, WhatsApp and other platforms may be exacerbating the disturbing
trend.
In the days before Flores and his uncle were targeted,
half a dozen Mexican states issued public warnings refuting incendiary social
media tales of kidnapping rings that remove organs from captive children to
sell on the black market.
One WhatsApp message, labeled “red alert,” advised
parents, teachers and others that a “plague of robachicos” had snatched an
unspecified number of children, some as young as 4.
“We cannot permit (that) this keeps happening, parents,
please pay attention,” the sham message advised.
This mountainous swath of Mexico’s Puebla state, close to
the state of Oaxaca, is heavily dependent on dollars wired from townsfolk who
have immigrated to the United States, especially the East Coast. The
remittances supplement meager incomes from planting corn, sugar cane and other
crops. Many inhabitants are of indigenous Mixtec origins; villagers tend to be
wary of police and outsiders.
Ricardo Flores’ parents, residents of Maryland, sent
money home to pay for his education, as well as the schooling of his younger
brother. Like so many others, the Flores family endured separation so that the
children would have opportunities.
On the afternoon of Aug. 29, Flores and his uncle drove
in Morales’ black Ford SUV from their hamlet, Tianguistengo, to the nearby
village of San Vicente Boqueron. The uncle planned to buy material for a fence
he was building at his mother’s home nearby.
They parked near a school and had a few beers, relatives
said. Their timing couldn’t have been worse — rumors were swirling across the
internet that two robachicos, both men in an SUV, were lurking in the area.
The presence of the two strangers aroused the suspicions
of villagers, who approached and accused the men of being kidnappers. Witnesses
said Flores and his uncle were dragged from the car, tied up and beaten.
“If the police won’t do anything, el pueblo will defend
itself against delinquents,” said Maria Lopez, a San Vicente Boqueron resident.
“If they were the ones robbing children, they deserved to be killed.”
Church bells began to toll, residents said, signaling an
emergency and attracting more villagers. Some wanted to lynch the two on the
spot.
Instead, they drove Flores and his uncle from San Vicente
Boqueron to Acatlan de Osorio, a town of 16,000 about 20 minutes away, where
there is a police station. An irate crowd — perhaps as many as 100 people,
according to witnesses and video footage — gathered outside where the two were
being held, ostensibly for their own protection.
“Everyone shouted, ‘Get them out! They must face
justice!’” recalled Palacios, 65, the shopkeeper. “Then suddenly they entered
(the police station) and took out the two men. Outside it was a scene of
terror.”
The mob chanted, “Burn them! Burn them!” recalled Mario
Solis, a fruit vendor.
Someone brought some gasoline.
“I can’t imagine the pain that they felt,” said Hortensia
Santos, who watched from her clothing shop as the two writhed in agony. “The
fire would go out and they would pour on more gasoline. I haven’t been able to
sleep; I can’t forget the image. I don’t know how people can be so ruthless.”
The villagers also torched the uncle’s vehicle.
Relatives, alerted by telephone, rushed to the scene.
“I was crying, ‘Let them go, they’re innocent,’” said
Juana Ramirez Flores, 42, a cousin of Flores and niece of his uncle. “But these
people just mocked our pain. They took photos, video. They laughed at me.”
Police did not intervene, witnesses said. Law enforcement
failed to “follow protocols” such as negotiating with the crowd and immediately
seeking backup, the secretary of public safety of the state of Puebla said in a
statement.
Two suspects in the attack have been arrested; one later
died in custody of natural causes, officials said. State authorities said they
were reviewing video of the incident to track down other participants. They
also launched an investigation to determine who was responsible for the cyber
hoax that sparked the incident.
Officials at WhatsApp and Facebook declined to comment on
the attack. But the companies — Facebook owns WhatsApp — did say that both were
taking measures to cut down on the rising tide of false information.
“WhatsApp cares deeply about the safety of our users,”
the messaging service said in a statement. “We believe the challenge of this
horrible mob violence requires action from leaders across society, including
from technology companies.”
This year, after viral reports about child kidnappers
sparked a series of lynchings in India, WhatsApp took out full-page
advertisements in Indian newspapers — along with radio spots and internet ads —
providing “easy tips” to spot spurious assertions. A similar, Spanish-language
effort is planned for later this year in Mexico, a WhatsApp spokesman said.
But recent attacks in Mexico suggest that such steps —
and even formal warnings from local law enforcement — may not be sufficient to
calm residents.
The day after the mob slayings here, vigilante justice
struck in Mexico’s central Hidalgo state, where authorities had just sent out a
Twitter message alerting the public of the child-kidnapper hoax.
A mob pulled a man and a woman from their truck in a rural
area and beat and burned them, authorities said, despite the pair’s pleas of
innocence. The man died at the scene, and the woman succumbed in a hospital.
Just as social media and smartphone apps helped spread
rumors of child kidnappers, these same platforms disseminated word of the fate
of the lynching victims.
Video of the grisly scene in Acatlan de Osorio — and
photos of the two charred bodies — soon reached cellphone users in the United
States. A distraught Rosario Rodriguez said she viewed the carnage on her phone
and read Facebook commentaries about the assaults on her son and
brother-in-law.
“It took my soul apart,” Rodriguez said.
She and her husband flew to Mexico the next day, in time
for a funeral. She says she will remain until “justice” is rendered.
“I pray to God that what happened to me, this great pain,
never happens to those who did this to my son,” said a sobbing Rodriguez. “That
they never feel the impotence of a mother who sees her son killed in such a
heartless manner.”
(Los Angeles Times staff writer McDonnell reported from
Mexico City, special correspondent Sanchez from Acatlan de Osorio.)
©2018 Los Angeles Times
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