The death last Thursday of a student at the pedagogic educational institution in Ayotchinapa, southern Mexico, during a shootout with police was due to an “abuse of power” and the officers involved were taken into custody, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Monday. .

The teachers’ school in Ayiotchinapa is known around the world because of the disappearance of 43 students in September 2014, an emblematic case in the country that counts almost one hundred thousand missing persons.

Initially, the death was claimed by official sources as the result of an “attack” by two students driving a stolen car against police officers who stopped them for a check.

A weapon was found inside the car, according to the first information released by the authorities.

“The police said these guys shot,” the president himself said on Friday.

But yesterday he made amends: “there was an abuse of power”, he emphasized during the press conference he gives every morning. “The young man did not shoot.”

The head of state added that the police officers involved in the case are in custody and announced that the general prosecutor’s office has been assigned to conduct the investigation. “We will not allow any interference”, nor “protection of those responsible”, he assured.

The death of student Jackie Rotan Gomes, 23, was recorded as the protests in the name of the 43 continue.

Last Wednesday, protesters stormed the entrance hall of the presidential palace in the capital to demand justice.

The case of the 43 is the best known among the tens of thousands of disappearances in Mexico (at least 92,000, according to the most recent official figures).

According to the “historical truth” of the previous government (2012-2018), the students were kidnapped by corrupt police officers, who handed them over to thugs of the “Guerreros Unidos” cartel; the latter murdered them and disappeared the bodies.

But domestic and international investigations proved that the Mexican army was aware, has not yet given a transparent explanation of what happened and is accused of “allowing” and “covering up” the events.