Page 12 - aruba-today-20180428

A12 WORLD NEWS
Saturday 28 april 2018

Mexican students allegedly dissolved in acid by rapper

By MARK STEVENSON and is under special pro-
MEXICO CITY (AP) — When tection in prison because
three film students went the cartel wants to kill him
to tape a college proj- for cooperating with pros-
ect in the western Mexico ecutors. The cartel had
city of Guadalajara, they killed one member of his
wound up crossing paths gang teaml already, and
with another young man neither Palma Gutierrez nor
with dreams of celeb- his public defender could
rity, a 24-year-old rapper be reached for comment.
who had built a YouTube Many saw a broader trag-
channel with more than edy in the case.
a half-million views based Palma Gutierrez "sings well,
on songs describing an an- and he tells a story in his
guished, violent life of drugs videos, like the stories film
and crime. students tell," commenta-
The students, who hoped tor Luis Cardenas wrote in
one day to join the wave a column in the newspaper
of Mexican directors who El Universal. "For two years,
have swept the Oscars in Omar screamed in his songs
recent years, instead stum- that something was very
bled into the hands of a wrong, and millions saw
drug gang that employed that ... and none of us did
the aspiring rapper. Inves- anything at all," Cardenas
tigators say that his job, in wrote. "Now three young
this case, was to dump their people are dead and one
bodies in sulfuric acid and life is ruined forever."
dispose of the remains. A student chants slogans to protest the murder of three film students who have become emblem- There is another genera-
The gang duties were a atic of Mexico's missing, in Guadalajara, Mexico, Thursday, April 26, 2018. tion in all of this: Omar's
sort of day job for Chris- Associated Press son, Tyson, who appears
tian Omar Palma Gutier- from photos to be about
rez, a rapper who went by so his family could get man, it was symbolic, say- open drain valves to re- 4. In pictures posted on his
the handle "Qba." He had ahead," said the producer, ing he was killing them with lease the fluid into the storm Facebook page, Omar is
50,000 followers on his so- who goes by the name "Sis- his music," Garduno said. drain, and remove any re- shown coaching his tiny
cial media accounts, and mo" Garduno. But there was nothing sym- maining sludge to dump it son to throw gang signals
670,000 views on his You- The heavily tattooed Pal- bolic about Palma Gutier- in fields, the sources said. and look tough.
Tube music videos . He had ma Gutierrez — he favored rez's work for the Jalisco That was how the dreams Garduno, the producer,
been scheduled to appear baggy shirts and shorts, Los New Generation drug car- of the three film students said adopting U.S. gang-
at a rap festival in Tijuana Angeles Dodgers and Oak- tel, Mexico's fastest-grow- ended. style "cholo" customs has
on April 29. land Raiders baseball caps, ing and most violent gang. Investigators say the film become a wave among
The man who produced and called himself "mode- As part of one of the car- students, whose ages Mexican youth.
Palma Gutierrez's videos fukka" — made videos de- tel's Guadalajara cells, Pal- ranged from 20 to 25, had "My experience in this
said the performer would picting a life hanging out ma Gutierrez would some- nothing to do with the drug genre is that a lot of them
dub his voice over instru- with his "homies," drinking times help kidnap or torture trade. Their mistake was to want to feel very "cholo,"
mental tracks downloaded and taking drugs. rivals, according to sources unwittingly film at a home Garduno said.
from the internet. He had In one, he croons, "My voice close to the investigation that had been used as Luis Gonzalez Perez, the
bragged about making will be the house where who have seen the case safe house by a rival drug head of the country's hu-
between 3,000 and 6,000 they rest in peace, so they file and are not authorized gang. The Jalisco cartel man rights commission,
pesos ($155 to $310) per are tormented in darkness, to be quoted by name. But was watching the house, said after Palma Gutierrez's
month from his YouTube but they'll like it," as he simu- his main job was serving and when the three stu- arrest this week that "what
videos — not terrible for lates beating and kicking a as what the gang calls a dents emerged, they were we have to do is to stop this
a high-school dropout in tied-up man with a bloody "cook." For 3,000 pesos per followed, abducted and climate of violence, be-
Mexico but hardly enough bag over his head, eventu- week, he dumped bodies taken to Jalisco cartel safe cause there is the risk that
to support his wife and chil- ally lighting his body on fire head-first into acid baths house for interrogation. if there are no jobs, no edu-
dren. with gasoline. set up in water tanks in the One died under torture, cation, if the young people
"He had dreams of grow- Garduno said the image yard of a cartel safe-house. leading the gang to kill the don't have recreational
ing, of making a living from was just metaphorical. He would come back after other two. opportunities, well the drug
this, so his parents wouldn't "In Qba's case, regarding two days — after the acid The sources said Palma cartels are going to recruit
have to struggle any more the video of the tied-up had done its work — and Gutierrez has confessed them."q