Wednesday, September 17, 2025

Suspected car thief becomes cop’s piñata in Jalisco city

Authorities in Tonalá, Jalisco, have begun internal proceedings against a police officer who used a suspected thief as a piñata.

Police had responded to reports of a vehicle that had been stolen while a 5-year-old girl slept in the back seat. They located the vehicle but the thief abandoned it and fled on foot.

Officers chased the suspect to the roof of a nearby church, where he threatened to jump to his death. For the next two hours, police officers and firefighters attempted to dissuade the man, slowly drawing closer to him, while a crowd of onlookers gathered below.

Finally, police were able to lasso the man by his ankle, and when he leapt from the roof he was left hanging upside down from a rope tied between the church and another building.

That was when a police officer climbed far enough to hit the man with a stick, which he began to do as if the suspect were a piñata. Shouts of encouragement came from the large group of spectators below.

Eventually, police arrested the man and handed him over to the public prosecutor’s office after he was given medical attention.

In the meantime, municipal authorities issued a statement saying that internal affairs had opened an investigation into the incident, which was captured on video and has been widely shared on social media.

Source: El Universal (sp)

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