Protestors break down doors of Mexico's presidential palace with pickup truck

Julia Gomez, USA TODAY
Updated ·2 min read
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Protestors in Mexico used a pickup truck as a battering ram to break down the doors of Mexico City’s National Palace, video shows.

In the video, masked protesters cheer as they slam a pickup truck owned by the Comisión Federal de Electricidad, Mexico's state electrical company, to break down the palace's wooden doors.

According, to NBC News, the palace is where Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrado, lives and hosts his daily press briefings.

After entering the building, multiple media outlets state the protestors were chased out of the historic building. Reuters reports police used tear gas to disperse the protestors.

According to local media, some of the people responsible for breaking down the door were arrested.

This is not the first time the doors were demolished by protestors. ABC 7 reports that demonstrators burned down the doors last year on International Women's Day.

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The president's reaction

ABC News states Mexico's president said the protestors had sledgehammers and blow torches.

“This is a movement against us,” López Obrador said. “The plan is to create a provocation.”

But, he also said it was "nothing" and downplayed the situation.

“The door will be fixed. It's nothing," he stated.

The president said he believes protestors were manipulated by human rights groups.

Sept. 23, 2022: Demonstrators protesting the disappearance of 43 college students throw explosive devices toward soldiers and police during a protest outside of a military base in Mexico City, Friday, Sept. 23, 2022, days before the anniversary of the disappearance of the students in Iguala, Guerrero in 2014. One week prior, Mexican authorities said they arrested a retired general and three other members of the army for alleged connection to their disappearance.

What were they protesting?

Demonstrators were there to protest the 2014 disappearances of 43 students who went missing in the city of Iguala, Guerrero, in south-central Mexico.

The BBC states that more than 60 male students from the Ayotzinapa teacher training college boarded buses to go to an annual protest in Mexico City. But as the buses left, the passengers saw roadblocks and shots were fired.

Police surrounded the buses and attacked. Then, 43 students vanished in the chaos that ensued. According to AP News, only three of their remains were identified.

Luz María Telumbre's son, Christian, disappeared with the others nine years ago.

"It's not like when a person dies and you say, well, at least I know where they are," Telumbre told the BBC.

The BBC reports that four years ago, Telumbre and her husband received a fragment of Christian's right foot that weighed just over an ounce.

In a BBC documentary, Disappeared: Mexico's Missing 43, Telumbre's husband told the media outlet that his struggle will continue while he does not have his son's whole body.

In 2022, a government truth commission called it a "state crime" and found that local, state and federal authorities teamed up with a local drug gang that seemingly murdered the students and burned their bodies, reports AP News.

This isn't the first protest

People have been protesting the disappearances for years and demanding to know what happened to the missing students.

AP News reported on a protest from September 2023, where protesters chanted from one to 43 while marching in Mexico City.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Mexico City protestors break into Presidential Palace