Torture scandal in Mexico: American ‘nearly beaten to death’
Police detained him for allegedly disturbing the peace, but Wooden says the beating arose from a dispute with his neighbor, a former cop who claimed to belong to a local drug cartel.
Human rights groups say police torture remains all too common in Mexico, but Wooden’s case from 2013 is unusual in two respects:
A probe in 2014 by the governmental Human Rights Defense Commission in Guerrero state found that Taxco police illegally detained Wooden, contradicted themselves about how he sustained his injuries and essentially lied about their extent.
On June 30, a federal judge ordered Mexico’s government to open a formal criminal investigation for torture and kidnapping in Wooden’s case.