State Blames APPO for Brad Will's Death

The investigation into Brad Will's murder is underway, and it looks like we'll all need to stay vigilant if anything resembling justice is to be found. Initial reports focused on the local police and local PRIista officials who were filmed (by Brad and by others) shooting at a crowd of APPO supporters and neighbors. Two of them were arrested, but they have not been located in any jail in Oaxaca City and no further information has been forthcoming. Two others apparently fled, but I talked to someone here in Oaxaca City who said they were still in the neighborhood, business as usual. Democracy Now! is a source for some of these earlier reports (http://www.democracynow.org) about the whereabouts of the men who indisputably shot directly at the crowd of people with whom Brad Will was standing. A witness, in fact, says he felt and heard the bullet whiz by his head before he turned and saw Brad fall. He was crouched in front of the camera and is clearly visible in Brad’s footage.

But this week the office of the Procuraduría General de Justicia del Estado and its PRIista chief Lizbeth Caña released several statements that blame APPO for Will's death.

Local daily 'El Imparcial' and the national TV outlet 'Televisa' both reported that Will had been killed by the second shot, delivered from close range after Will had been moved from the scene of the first shot, presumably in the second car that tried to carry him to a hospital. According to many Oaxacans, both of these news outlets are little more than mouthpieces for the government. The evidence given is that forensic experts viewed Brad's final video (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=847209689299756503&q=brad+will), and determined somehow that the two shots came from the same gun.

There are a lot of questions, and a lot of suspicious gaps in several of the various theories being given for what happened and when on October 27th. I should state now that I was not at the scene that day, nor even in Oaxaca City, and do not intend to offer this article as proof of any one version. I have simply heard some important and strange facts about the ‘investigation’ into Brad’s death: The US Consul was not present at the autopsy, and human rights observers were *not* permitted to film the autopsy. Brad himself had filmed the autopsies of two murdered APPO sympathizers in the week before his own death. The two bullets extracted from his body (initially reported to be AR-15 bullets) were turned over to the state. The autopsy doctor said that the first shot killed Brad, that he was shot from the front in the center of his chest and that the bullet severed his aorta and lodged in his spine. The government hired a specialist who followed up the initial autopsy by refuting its claims. Bradley’s body had already been cremated when this second expert opinion surfaced, claiming that the second shot came fifteen minutes later, delivered by the men who tried to bring him to a hospital or clinic before he died. Again, the only evidence given for this theory is what you yourself can see on the video, and that you can hear some of the people in the crowd saying to ‘turn off your cameras.’ Apparently, that’s the motive for killing a so-called ‘sympathetic’ journalist, even though there are at least three video cameras visible in the footage, a big TV camera among them, and countless cameras, cell phone and otherwise.

A second shot

The second shot is the subject of all this speculation. Watching Brad’s final film, a group of APPO sympathizers are under heavy fire from the end of the block (where the implicated PRIistas are shooting) and from a house on the right side of the street. It seems clear enough that the first shot comes from the end of the block. But the second? The second bullet lodged in the right side of his body. It could have come from the same gun and hit him as he fell to the ground. It could have come from the house. The government is saying that it came inside one of the two cars that tried to bring Brad to the hospital.

Brad was initially taken away folded up into a VW Bug, which promptly ran out of gas. ‘El Imparcial’ printed the license plate number and name of the driver who picked him up and brought him to the Red Cross clinic, which as you will hear below had refused to treat APPO sympathizers in the past and who refused to send an ambulance to the scene of his murder that October afternoon. Today a report in the daily 'Noticias' (photo below) mentions several photos taken at the scene of the initial shooting that cleary show the second bullet wound, disputing the government-line and demonstrating that the second shot came soon after the first.

The evidence that could clear all this up is no where to be found. Brad’s sf.indymedia.org T-shirt (‘Make Media, Make Trouble’) has not been located, and the bullets are in the custody of the PGJE. It is possible, then, that he was shot twice by the PRIistas at the end of the block. It is also possible that the second shot came either from the house where a shooter was hiding, from an APPO member in the crowd, from an infiltrator in the crowd, or later in the second car. But there is no evidence that makes any of these possibilities fact, nor at this point any legitimate reason to implicate APPO or those who tried to save Brad’s life.

It seems to many to be a desperate attempt by the (essentially ousted) state government to deflect attention from the PRIistas and to blame APPO. An essential part of this line has been to discredit Bradley and his work. Radio Mapuche, the PRIsta radio station in Oaxaca City, has called Bradley an armed terrorist, claiming that he was shooting that day and that patriots loyal to the government should attack other foreigners with cameras, since APPO is run by foreigners anyway. The PGJE claims to have searched the apartment in which Brad was living at the time of his death and found notes and maps of the barricades, inferring that he was in deep with APPO. This is absolutely not the case. Such maps do not exist, and no one ever searched the apartment where he was living. The government has said that indymedia reporters are taking orders directly from APPO. Corporate media (and some friends and family) have called him reckless, said that he crossed a line, that he was not objective. Basically, they say that he’s at the same time both directing APPO and taking orders from it, that he’s both an APPO sympathizer who compromised his journalistic integrity and that he was executed by APPO members in order to internationalize the conflict.

Or that APPO shot him point blank because they wanted him to stop filming.

As the Anniversary of the Mexican Revolution approaches (this Monday November 20th), the 7th MegaMarcha takes to the streets (Nov. 25th), and people protest yet another inauguration of a fraudulently selected president, keep vigilant. November 20th is a national and international day of action in support of justice for Oaxaca. There are legitimate questions about Brad’s death, still unanswered, and those in power are actively deflecting blame from their supporters (those most obviously culpable) and instead manufacturing evidence to make a case against APPO. Friends of Brad Will: keep organizing! This is not over, for the people of Oaxaca nor for Bradley Roland Will.