On April 28, 1909, Mexicans Arcadio Jimenez, Hilario Silva, and Marcelino Martinez were shot dead en masse in Chalco for allegedly killing police officers during the tense twilight hours before the Mexican Revolution by dictator Porfirio Diaz.
The Mexican Revolution, which broke out between 1910 and 1917, was a democratic revolution aimed at overthrowing the Diaz dictatorship, democratization, agrarian reform, and transformation of social and economic structures. After a civil war, the foundations of Mexico were laid by the new constitution of 1917. About 900,000 people lost their lives to famine, disease, and banditry from the civil war casualties of the Mexican Revolution. Hostile regime forces scoured the cities for unemployed recruits in a devastated economy. Hanging and firing squads disposed of prisoners and civilians without permission. Frequent hangings and prisoner executions became a terror to the populace, who, due to years of starvation in the capital city of Mexico City in 1915, registered for conscription as regime soldiers rather than die of starvation.
In Chalco, Mexico, on April 28, 1909, soldiers of the 10th Rural Brigade searched for three prisoners and placed them in prison; the three prisoners were carried to the scaffold of the barriolet and received spiritual support from Ayotzingo and a Chalco priest. Three lines were drawn with lime on the walls of the adobe house and the condemned prisoners were lined up to be executed. When the condemned prisoners reached the wall, their relatives said goodbye. The sad faces of the women, the resignation of the prisoners, and the unintelligible children were captured.
Chalco's political cadres visited the arrested Arcadio Jimenez and bandaged his eyes, his last hope. Hilario Silva and Marcelino Martinez, however, wanted to die by sight. Before they were killed, in a trembling voice, they said to the representatives of the police and the judiciary, "I bid farewell to all this world." After the priest had given them their feast, Lieutenant Muñoz de Cotte ordered the regime soldiers who prepared the execution. He raised his bayonet, swung it down firmly, and ended the lives of the suspects by rupturing their hearts at the firing squad. Doctors certified the deaths as confirmed.
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