The accused walked handcuffed this Friday under the arms of two police officers, as he approached the prison doors. Dozens of curious people looked over some fences. Journalists and agents recorded the scene with their phones and professional cameras. He, dressed in black and blue, looked anywhere. At one point, someone shouted, “Sebastian, why did you do it?” The videos were taken from behind, his face could not be seen when the scream crossed the sky. With all the noise, it's also not clear if he heard it. Thrown into the air, the question linked to the general feeling of a country, Mexico, once again faced with cruelty: why?
From Tijuana to Palenque, and perhaps beyond, few ignore the basic details of what happened Tuesday in Atizapán, a stone's throw from the capital. The accused, Diego Sebastián N, arrived at the house of a known family and killed them. Known to him, to the accused; generally known, because the father was the keyboardist of a popular indie band, Camilo Séptimo. He murdered the mother, who was four months pregnant; he murdered his father, with whom he had some type of business relationship; He murdered the little daughter, three years old; murdered the babysitter, 21; He even killed the dog. Only the oldest child, who is six years old, was saved and hid somewhere in the house until the police arrived, which happened after several hours.
The massacre connects with the national rumor, the known violence, witnessed daily in different parts of the country, a reality that is difficult to accommodate. Murders have been skyrocketing in Mexico for many years. You have to go back to 2009 to see less than 20,000. In her book Gore Capitalism, Baja California philosopher Sayak Valencia remembers an interview that EL PAÍS correspondent in Mexico, in the first years of the war against drugs, Pablo Ordaz, gave to the then attorney general Eduardo Medina Mora. Ordaz pointed out the high levels of homicides – it was the year 2008 – and the official responded that, “compared to other countries, the levels of violence are not so unfavorable.”
A student of the violence and cruelty caused by the development model in Mexico, Valencia is surprised in her book that the number of victims registered that year seemed “not enough to alarm” the then prosecutor. She mentions 5,800, but the National Institute of Statistics would later raise that figure to more than 14,000. The anguish already existed then. Shortly after, the savage murder of the son of the poet Javier Sicilia and some friends would catalyze that anguish into a hopeful social movement, which would put the Government of President Felipe Calderón (2006-2012) on the ropes. Hope was born. There was strength in unity and everything was relatively new: Los Zetas, the massacres of organized crime, the armed forces, the spectacularization of death.
But the years went by. In 2014, there was a devious attack against the students of the Ayotzinapa Rural Normal School: 43 were disappeared at the hands of a conspiracy of criminals and authorities that still clouds the national narrative. It was never known what became of them. In 2019, criminals murdered and then burned relatives – including six children – of Julián Lebarón, one of the founders of the movement that the poet Sicilia had led years ago. Both crimes generated protest reactions in the country. But the protests, with the passage of time, deflated. Not because nothing was fixed, but because new atrocities were happening.
Murders increased, exceeding 30,000 annually for several years. There were more massacres, many more. There were also changes of Government, from the PAN to the PRI and from the PRI to Morena, and consequent changes in strategy against insecurity. Nothing seemed to work until a year or so ago, when the Government led by Claudia Sheinbaum began to celebrate notable decreases in the homicide curve. In the presentation of his second government report, on Tuesday, he said that today there are 51% fewer murders than two years ago. Controversy about the figures aside – they deserve their own text and discussion – the reduction is real. There are also real massacres like that of Atizapán.
The case has hit society. The murderer's rage has gone deep. Sources close to the case that EL PAÍS has consulted confirm a rumor that emerged this week. Diego Sebastián would have prepared the massacre in advance. He bought adhesive tape and other utensils that would later be used in his attack. It was not a heated discussion, a discussion that got heated. He arrived with the idea of what he would do, a detail that results in terror. "It's atrocious. Because a dispute in which life is in danger, well, it can be understood," explains José Luis Álvarez León, PhD in Law from UNAM. “But here, there is a process of machination, premeditation and treachery… The problem is: how many people are there like this in a social context like ours?”
Authorities have said that Diego Sebastián and one of the victims, the man, Camilo Séptimo keyboardist Jonathan Honas Meléndez, were in business. The Secretary of Federal Security, Omar García Harfuch, explained this Friday that the first had demanded money from the second. This newspaper reported in recent days, citing sources familiar with the investigations, that both ran a luxury home rental business through a website. The grievance, of which absolutely everything is unknown right now, points there. The solution for Diego Sebastián, a subject that the Prosecutor's Office of the State of Mexico was looking for for fraud, an aspect that this newspaper has also confirmed, was to kill them all.
It is difficult to take a stand in the face of pain. In recent years, many in Mexico have become accustomed to dealing with the violence of organized crime, assuming that they are distant realities. In the same way, many assume that violence carried out by police and military is generally distant. With nothing to hide, why should a dyke, a doctor, or a lawyer worry about an agent getting out of hand? This, despite the negligence or criminal behavior of many uniformed officers over the years. But Atizapán is something else. "It is a tribal crime at its core, intimate, that occurs in the family environment, with a surprising luxury of violence. It horrifies families because it occurred in the intimate environment of a family. That is why it is horrifying," says Dr. Yuriria Rodríguez, trained at the National Institute of Criminal Sciences.
