CIUDAD VICTORIA, Mexico (AP) — When state police in northern Mexico allegedly shot 19 people to death in late January near the border with Texas, it was a tragedy that critics say authorities had been warned could come. The same Tamaulipas state police unit had pulled eight people from their homes in the border city of Nuevo Laredo in 2019, posed them in clothing and vehicles to make them look like criminals, and shot them down. In November, a business association warned authorities that the members of the unit had broken into a member’s home and stolen cash and appliances. In early January, a federal lawmaker accused the unit of beatings and robberies. Yet nothing was ever done to rein the unit in.
