Friends of Brad Will

Authorities in Oaxaca, Mexico deny reporting that U.S. journalist was shot at point-blank range (via Associated Press)

The Associated Press
Published: November 24, 2006

OAXACA, Mexico: Authorities in the southern state of Oaxaca insisted
that an American journalist-activist killed during violent protests last
month was not shot at point-blank range as they had indicated earlier.

The assertion made Thursday further muddies a case already dogged by
conflicting statements and accusations by protesters that authorities
are trying to protect their own in the death of Bradley Roland Will.

Will, 36, who wrote dispatches for the Web site Indymedia.com, was
filming a group of leftist protesters when they clashed with a group of
armed men in Santa Lucia, a working-class town on the outskirts of
Oaxaca City. Both sides fired, but it is not clear who shot first. Will
was shot in the abdomen and died on the way to hospital.

Police later arrested Santa Lucia town officials Abel Santiago Zarate
and Orlando Aguilar in the killing. The men were allegedly part of group
of officials and off-duty police officers confronting the protesters.
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At a news conference last week, however, Attorney General Lizbeth Cana
Cabeza said state investigators had found that both of the bullets that
killed Will were fired from the same gun and one of them was fired at
point-blank range — evidence signaling that the leftist protesters whom
he was with, and not the town officials, may have shot him.

A spokesman for the protesters said at the time that authorities were
fabricating evidence to win the officials’ release.

Yet in a news release issued Thursday, the state Attorney General’s
office said that “neither the state attorney general nor any official
from the department has told the news media that the shots fired against
Bradley Will were fired at close range.”

There was no immediate explanation for the discrepancy.

Further confusing the case, a man who was identified as having driven
Will in his pickup truck to an awaiting ambulance told the Televisa
television network late Thursday that Will had only one gunshot wound,
not two.

Oaxaca City, formerly popular with tourists for its nearby ruins,
mouth-watering Mexican cuisine, colonial architecture, and handicrafts,
has been under seige for the past six months by protesters demanding the
resignation of Oaxaca Gov. Ulises Ruiz, who they claim rigged the 2004
election and has used violence against his opponents.

At least nine people have died in the clashes, including Will.

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