Tuxtla Gutierrez, Mexico – Jesus Alain Vasquez Perez's final moments were captured by a grainy surveillance camera hoisted high above the Chicoasen highway.
The footage is only seconds long. Suddenly, three vehicles zoom into view: one pick-up truck pursued by two police cruisers, their sirens flashing red against the ink-black night.
One of the police vehicles overtakes the pick-up. It cuts in front, manoeuvring as if to slow the pick-up down. But in that moment, a figure falls from the bed of the truck.
It rolls onto the road. It stops moving. The second police cruiser swerves to avoid it.
Protests had gripped the city of Tuxtla Gutierrez, in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, on the night of May 15. Students from the Mactumatza teacher training school had been rallying for better access to education and resources.
One of those students — 20-year-old Maria, who asked to be identified by a pseudonym — had taken a break from demonstrations that night. She was spending time at the school when she learned one of her fellow protesters had gotten hurt.
She left to see for herself. She found Vasquez limp on the highway.
“I went up [to the highway] to see him, and he was on the ground. He was bleeding," Maria said. "I was in shock. This was completely unexpected. He was just at a protest.”
How Vasquez came to fall from the pick-up truck that night would become the subject of fierce debate in the days to come. That debate, experts say, underscores the distrust that has festered between Mexico's state police and some of its poorest students.