Mother says police helicopter gunfire killed her 7-year-old daughter during Mexico cartel operation

CIUDAD VICTORIA, Mexico -- Claudia Pardo García was traveling with her husband and five children when she heard the rotors of a police helicopter hovering above their vehicle in the Mexican border city of Matamoros. Minutes later, her 7-year-old daughter had been shot in the head.

Aranza Aidelany Pardo, who held dual U.S. and Mexican citizenship, was among six people killed Oct. 29 during a security operation targeting an alleged member of the Gulf Cartel and roadblocks erected by the criminal group afterward. The other five victims died in crashes involving vehicles used to block roads.

Pardo, 31, who was wounded in her left leg, told The Associated Press that the shot that killed her daughter came from the Tamaulipas state police helicopter. State authorities are investigating whether three officers aboard the aircraft fired their weapons.

Pardo said FBI and U.S. consular representatives had contacted her family.

The operation led to the arrest of Axel Alfredo Cárdenas Rodríguez, known as "El Titán," the son of an alleged Gulf Cartel leader and nephew of its imprisoned founder, Osiel Cárdenas Guillén. The United States has designated the cartel a terrorist organization.

That afternoon, Pardo had picked up her husband from work with their five children. As they drove home, they encountered roadblocks and took a rural shortcut to avoid them.

She noticed a helicopter following their vehicle and warned her husband, who initially dismissed her concerns.

Pardo said the helicopter came within about 7 meters (23 feet) of their vehicle, close enough for officers to see the family inside. It then began circling in front of them.

"My husband said, 'Get out so they can see we're a family,'" she recalled. "He raised his hands, asking what they wanted."

Their 13-year-old son got out of the vehicle as one of the girls began screaming that someone was shooting.

Another daughter then cried out that Aranza had been hit.

"She told me, 'Mommy, they killed China,'" Pardo said, using the family's affectionate nickname for the girl.

Pardo tried to get out of the vehicle while holding her daughter but collapsed, unaware that she had been shot in the knee. The helicopter continued flying overhead, she said.

Her husband instructed their 13-year-old son to drive his three siblings to a nearby relative's home. Security camera footage captured the children arriving to seek help as gunfire could still be heard in the distance.

Pardo said emergency medical personnel took more than two hours to arrive. Her daughter's body remained at the scene for four hours, she said.

Pardo underwent surgery but requested to leave the hospital the following day so she could bury her daughter.

Authorities covered the family's medical and funeral expenses, she said, but provided few details about the investigation.

Tamaulipas state prosecutor Jesús Govea said investigators had interviewed Pardo and other witnesses and were reviewing video footage and ballistic evidence to determine who fired the fatal shot and how the family became caught up in the operation.

Govea confirmed that U.S. consular officials had contacted state authorities.

Tamaulipas Public Security Secretary Carlos Arturo Pancardo attributed the shooting to the violence that erupted during the operation and said the officers under investigation remained on active duty.

Pardo said she never imagined her family could come under fire from the very authorities she believed were supposed to protect them.

"You think the soldiers, the marines, all these officers are there to protect us," she said. "But look what happened."

This was not the first time civilians have been killed during security operations in Mexico. In April, legal proceedings began against 13 military personnel in connection with the killings of two girls in Sinaloa.