A MECHANIC apparently angry that a daily flag ceremony blocked access to his house and shop rammed his pickup into a crowd of preschoolers gathered outside their school Monday, killing two toddlers.
Television news footage showed a pickup truck parked and waiting as a group of 100 preschoolers and their teachers held a flag ceremony in a quiet street of Ecatepec, just outside Mexico City.
Several children, dressed in colourful soldier outfits, carried a Mexican flag while others banged on drums or watched.
In the amateur video, a man who appears to be Jose Luis Nieto, a 56-year-old mechanic with a shop in front of the school, can be seen trying to talk to some of the adults. Suddenly, the man gets into his truck, backs up, then races into the crowd, running over several children and teachers and dragging their bodies down the street.
Two-year-old Ariana Martinez and 3-year-old Rodrigo Reyes were killed. Two adults and some 20 other children, including a 4-month-old baby, were injured, police said.
Shocked toddlers, bloodied and bandaged, recounted on television news reports how the truck was suddenly on top of them.
”The car ran us over,” said student Dalia Salas, the white collar of her dress stained with blood and her arm scraped and bloodied. Screaming parents were shown clutching injured children in the bloodied street in front of the school.
During his arrest, Nieto said he wanted to hurt one of the school’s teachers.
”They wouldn’t give me access to my house, to come and go,” he said in a television interview. ”I have a shop in back.
”This was every day, every day until today this happened. I was targeting the teacher.”
Jorge Nunez, a local city official, said that more than five months ago Nieto had sought to ban the students from holding their daily ceremony in the street.
Several parents of the children said the school had received a judge’s order allowing them to hold the ceremony. The school’s director was one of the injured and could not confirm the reports. Parents of the children said Nieto had threatened the school and even driven his truck at the crowd before, suddenly braking before hitting anyone.
The school had operated for more than three years and had more than 100 students. ? Sapa-AP