A 7-year-old girl who held both U.S. and Mexican citizenship was killed during a Mexican security operation aimed at an alleged cartel member. Her mother says officers in a helicopter fired the shot that struck her daughter.
Aranza Aidelany Pardo died Oct. 29 in Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville, Texas. Six people were killed during the operation and the roadblocks that the Gulf Cartel set up afterward.
Her mother, Claudia Pardo García, said gunfire from a Tamaulipas state police helicopter hit Aranza in the head. Pardo was also shot in the leg.
Authorities are investigating three officers who were aboard the helicopter. They remain on active duty, Tamaulipas Public Security Secretary Carlos Arturo Pancardo said.
The operation led to the arrest of Axel Alfredo Cárdenas Rodríguez, known as El Titán. He is the son of an alleged Gulf Cartel leader and the nephew of the group’s imprisoned founder, Osiel Cárdenas Guillén.
Pardo said she was traveling home with her husband and their five children when they came upon cartel roadblocks and took a rural route instead. She said a police helicopter followed their vehicle, then circled in front of it.
Her husband got out with his hands raised to show officers they were a family, Pardo said. Gunfire followed. Aranza was hit in the head, and Pardo was wounded in the leg. She said it took more than two hours for emergency crews to arrive.
Tamaulipas state prosecutor Jesús Govea said investigators had interviewed witnesses and were examining video and ballistic evidence to establish who fired the fatal shot.
Pardo said FBI representatives and U.S. consular officials had contacted the family after the shooting. The FBI, State Department and Tamaulipas prosecutor’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
