A 7-year-old American girl was killed by gunfire from a Mexican police helicopter during a cartel chase near the Texas border, her mother told Mexican media.
Aranza died on Oct. 29 in Matamoros, the Mexican city that sits directly across from Brownsville, Texas, after officers opened fire on the family’s pickup truck, the Tamaulipas state prosecutor’s office confirmed. The girl’s mother said she had been driving with her husband and five children, all of them under age 14, when they noticed the helicopter following them.
After the family stopped the vehicle, the woman’s husband got out to tell authorities they were civilians with children in the car. Police opened fire anyway, the mother said. She used her own body to try to shield the children, but a bullet struck Aranza in the head, Mexican network Milenio reported.
The family had been traveling through an area where armed men had set up road blockades following the capture of a local gang member. Tamaulipas Attorney General Jesús Govea told Milenio that law enforcement officers were responding to an attack from the ground they came under during those blockades.
The officers who fired the shots have not been detained, Govea said. He added that there is “significant progress” in the investigation.
The operation that preceded the blockades targeted Alfredo Cárdenas RodrÃguez, known as Axel, a suspected high-ranking member of the Ciclones group within the Gulf Cartel. Following his capture, Mexico’s Security Secretary Omar GarcÃa Harfuch posted to X that Cárdenas RodrÃguez has been linked to homicides, kidnappings, extortion and trafficking drugs, weapons and people into the United States.
The shooting of Aranza’s family came amid that broader cartel violence in Matamoros. Armed men had established the road blockades after Cárdenas RodrÃguez was taken into custody, creating the chaotic environment in which the police helicopter opened fire.
The Tamaulipas state prosecutor’s office is continuing its investigation into the police-involved killing.