The New Yorker
By Stephania Taladrid, August 10, 2019
On Sunday evening, as U.S. authorities considered bringing hate-crime charges against the gunman who opened fire in El Paso, the Mexican Foreign Minister did not waver. At a press conference in Mexico City, Marcelo Ebrard spoke solemnly about the massacre, which took the lives of eight of his fellow-countrymen. “Mexico is indignant,” he said, adding, “We will not meet hate with hate, we will act with reason and within the law, but with firmness.” Ebrard announced that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Attorney General’s Office would look into a series of possible legal actions, such as bringing a criminal case against the shooter, charging him with committing acts of terrorism against Mexicans in the United States, demanding his extradition, and suing the seller of the assault-style rifle that he had used. Ebrard answered no questions, but he concluded his remarks by saying that, via diplomatic channels, his team would urge its American counterparts to take “a clear and forceful position against hate crimes.”
Aidee Gutiérrez and her daughters Marlene and Brissa pay their respects at a makeshift memorial outside a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, the site of last week’s mass shooting. Photograph by Mario Tama / Getty
