For the third time this year, video has emerged on social media of unknown persons forcing young men to walk semi-nude through the streets of Guasave, Sinaloa, with their hands tied and bearing written messages implicating them as disloyal gangsters.

On Saturday, two young men were taken to the city center with their wrists tied in front of them and forced to walk through the streets wearing little clothing.

Declarations that they were chapulines (grasshoppers), a cartel term for gang members who join another, rival gang or who are caught profiting on their own, were written on their backs and on cardboard taped to their bodies.

According to witnesses, police observed the incident but did not intervene.

Local authorities interviewed by the newspaper El Universal said that they had received no reports of Saturday’s incident.

Witnesses also said the two men bore evidence of physical blows to the buttocks. On social media, commenters claimed that the two young men were captured in the nearby town of Batamote before being taken to Guasave.

This is the third time a similar event has happened in the city this year. On October 7, unknown persons forced three young people to walk nude through the Guasave’s city center with their hands tied behind their backs and cardboard signs taped to their chests declaring they were chapulines.

On March 12, photographs appeared on social media of a completely nude young man, his hands tied behind his back, showing evidence of blows to his back and buttocks, forced to walk in the center of Guasave followed closely by a vehicle.

According to witnesses at the time, police did not intervene in the two previous incidents either.

Source: El Universal (sp)