A seven-year-old girl with dual US and Mexican citizenship was killed during a security operation in the Mexican border city of Matamoros on 29 October, and her mother says the fatal shot was fired from a police helicopter. Aranza Pardo died after being struck in the head, her mother told the Associated Press, in an account published this week that has renewed scrutiny of the operation.

Aranza was among six people killed during the operation and the roadblocks that followed it, according to the Associated Press. The operation, in Matamoros, across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas, was aimed at capturing an alleged Gulf Cartel figure, and it set off a wave of violence in the city as gunmen blocked roads with burning vehicles.

The mother’s account

Claudia Pardo García, Aranza’s mother, told the AP that she, her husband and their five children were returning home when they encountered cartel roadblocks and took a rural shortcut. She said a Tamaulipas state police helicopter began following their vehicle before circling in front of it.

According to her account, her husband got out of the vehicle with his hands raised to show officers that they were a family with children, but gunfire erupted. Aranza was struck in the head, and Pardo was wounded in the leg. She told the AP that emergency personnel took more than two hours to arrive.

Mexican media reported that all five children in the vehicle were under the age of 14, and that Pardo used her body to shield them. The family’s account is that the officers opened fire despite being told the occupants were civilians.

The operation and the arrest

The operation resulted in the arrest of Axel Alfredo Cárdenas Rodríguez, also known as El Titán, the son of an alleged Gulf Cartel leader and nephew of the group’s imprisoned founder, Osiel Cárdenas Guillén. Mexico’s security secretary, Omar García Harfuch, said Cárdenas Rodríguez had been linked to homicides, kidnappings and extortion, as well as trafficking drugs, weapons and people into the United States.

Reports citing the Tamaulipas state prosecutor’s office said the fatal bullet was fired from a Tamaulipas State Guard helicopter. Tamaulipas Attorney General Jesús Govea said investigators had interviewed witnesses and were reviewing video and ballistic evidence to establish exactly who fired the deadly shot.

Investigation under way

Three officers who were aboard the helicopter are under investigation, according to Tamaulipas Public Security Secretary Carlos Arturo Pancardo. The officers remain on active duty while the inquiry continues.

Govea told the Mexican network Milenio that law enforcement officers were responding to an attack from the ground when they came under fire during the roadblocks. He said the officers who opened fire had not been detained, but that there was “significant progress” in the investigation.

Pardo told the AP that FBI representatives and US consular officials had contacted her family after the shooting. The FBI, the US State Department and the Tamaulipas prosecutor’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Fox News Digital, which first carried the AP interview.

The killing has drawn attention to the risks faced by civilians when security forces and cartel gunmen clash in border cities, and to the use of armed helicopters in operations in built-up areas. The investigation into the three officers continues.

Sources: Associated Press via US Times Mirror; New York Post.