The gruesome case of three Guadalajara film students who were kidnapped, beaten and killed — and their bodies dissolved in acid — was generating outrage Tuesday across Mexico and on social media.
The internet was awash with denunciations and somber reflections on the wave of violence and impunity that has overtaken Mexico, where a record number of homicides were reported last year and where “disappearances” of people are a distressingly regular occurrence.
While Mexico has been the site of countless kidnappings, slayings and even massacres in recent years, the case of the three film students appears to have touched a fundamental national nerve — somewhat akin to the way the rampage at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., in February crystallized U.S. attention on the crisis of school shootings.
The frozen, youthful images of Salomon, Marco and Daniel — the slain students’ first names have already entered into common usage — have become emblematic of the intractable crisis that escalating violence poses for Mexican society, especially for the young. Their grisly trajectory from exuberant would-be filmmakers to rendered remains in vats of sulfuric acid has exposed as hollow the vows of politicians, police chiefs and generals to fix the problem.
Read the full story on LATimes.com.