Mexican Government Covers Up Murder of Journalist

On October 27, 2006, Brad Will stood on Juarez Avenue in the municipality of Santa Lucia del Camino, Oaxaca, Mexico. He was filming a violent clash between armed, civilian-clad municipal police and officials and members of the Oaxaca Peoples' Popular Assembly, or APPO.

Brad traveled to Oaxaca in early October 2006 to report on the protest movement led by the state teachers union that sought to oust governor Ulises Ruiz of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, after his failed attempt to beat and arrest striking teachers during a June 14 pre-dawn raid.

Brad stood amongst the APPO protesters and other journalists, filming down the length of Juarez Avenue where the armed officials were firing at the protesters. Brad was shot and fell to the ground, his camera still running and having recorded the sound of the shot that hit him. Brad was shot from straight on, just below the chest, and yet his killer does not appear in the camera frame at the moment of the gunshot. Brad died on the way to the hospital. He had been shot twice.

Two years later, on October 16, 2008, the Mexican federal government arrested two members of the APPO, and charged Juan Manuel Martinez as the gunman and Octavio Perez with helping to cover up Brad's murder. Federal police were still looking for other suspected accomplices, all members of the APPO who had tried to carry Brad to safety and save his life.

The arrests came after a series of human rights reports criticized the government's investigation for failing to follow leads pointing to local officials who were widely photographed by the press shooting at APPO protesters on October 27, 2006.

"It is such a cover up," said Kathy Will, Brad's mother, in a telephone interview upon learning of the arrests. "It is an insult to us and to all of the groups that have tried to help with a meaningful investigation."

Long-range Shot

Whether or not Brad Will was shot at close or long range lies at the heart of the controversy over the government's investigation and the recent arrests. Civilian-clad local police and municipal officials in Santa Lucia del Camino were filmed and photographed firing on the APPO protesters amongst whom Brad Will was standing when he was shot. The federal government however, has not investigated the involvement of the local officials.

More than a dozen protesters and press photographers surrounded Brad when he was shot. All those interviewed said that the bullets came from down the street. Moments before Brad was killed, photographer Oswaldo Ramirez was shot in the leg. The PGR however has not interviewed Mr. Ramirez nor investigated the shooting.

"All the shots were coming from down the street, where the paramilitaries had gathered," said Mexican journalist Diego Osorno who covered the battle that day and later wrote about it in his book Oaxaca Under Siege.

"As journalists, we were all focusing on the paramilitaries as the source of the gunfire," he said.

Raul Estrella, a photographer for El Universal who won an international photojournalism award for his coverage of the Oaxaca conflict, said that Pedro Carmona, a municipal official, shot at him when he noticed Estrella taking his picture shortly before Brad Will was killed.

"I heard the bullet whiz by my head and that's when I left," Estrella, who took a now-famous photograph of Pedro Carmona and other Santa Lucia del Camino officials shooting at the protesters, said in an interview in 2007.

The PGR has not charged Pedro Carmona with attempted murder, nor did they interview him in Brad's case.

The Mexican authorities claim that Brad's killers shot him at close range, at a distance of 2 meters, implicating the APPO protesters themselves, rather than the gunmen located down the street.

Witnesses, independent experts, and the Mexican governmental human rights group all challenge the PGR's short-range hypothesis.