Twelve Mexican border state police officers are awaiting sentencing following their conviction on multiple charges concerning the execution and incineration of 19 individuals, including 17 Central American migrants.
This week, after eight hours of hearings, Tamaulipas State Judge Patricio Lugo Jaramillo ruled against 12 Tamaulipas state police officers linked to the January 22, 2022 massacre near Camargo. The officers also face additional charges and remain behind bars awaiting sentencing on September 19.
As Breitbart Texas initially reported, on January 22, 2022, the police officers shot and killed a group of migrants that were being smuggled from Monterrey to the U.S. border, where they would be smuggled into Texas.
The execution occurred in the Las Piedras Ranch in the municipality of Diaz Ordaz, near the border between the states of Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas. At the time, the police officers reportedly confused the vehicles used by the human smugglers for a convoy of cartel gunmen and shot at them. Upon realizing the group was made up of migrants and not cartel gunmen, authorities set fire to the bodies and vehicles to erase the evidence.
For the charges of murder, abuse of authority, and crimes against public administration, Judge Lugo Jaramillo ruled against former special operations commander Horacio Rocha Nambo and officers Hector Javier Alfaro Acuña, Horacio Quiroz Sánchez, William Figueroa Medellin, Jorge Echeverria Barcenas, Christian Eduardo González Garcìa, Carlos Rodriguez Rodriguez, Jorge Castillo Miranda, Jose Luis López Morales, and Edgar Manuel Antonio.
In the case of regional police coordinator Mayra Elizabeth Vazquez, Judge Lugo Jaramillo was convicted here on the same three charges but also added a fourth charge of lying in official statements for her attempts to cover up the case.
For officer Ismael Vazquez Leon, who reportedly turned state’s witness, the judge only convicted him of abuse of authority and crimes against public administration. This spared him from the more severe murder charge.
Vazquez Leon and two other witnesses who lived in the area where the crime took place were key in providing authorities with testimony about what happened and the subsequent cover-up, sources with the Tamaulipas Attorney General’s Office revealed.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at
Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at
