1996: Rodolfo Soler Hernandez, burned on video
August 31st, 2019 Headsman
On this date in 1996, the people of the Veracruz town of Playa Vicente visited an orderly extrajudicial lynching on an accused rapist and murderer.
This “illegal execution” (in the words of the Veracruz Attorney General) made the airwaves around Mexico and abroad thanks to horrifying video showing the suspect — obviously beaten — lashed to a tree and agonizingly consumed in flames. Warning: Although this is an edited and narrated version of the video, it’s still extremely disturbing.
According to an Associated Press wire report, Hernandez’s “execution” was only the most visible of a spate of vigilante justice around that time, authored by people infuriated by the corruption and inaction of official law enforcement.
Saturday [apparently the same day, August 31 -ed.], residents of Motozintla in southern Mexico overran the town jail, seizing three men and burning two of them alive on lampposts, Mexico’s official Notimex news agency reported. The men were suspects in several assaults, including the rape of a young girl.
On Monday in Puebla state, police saved two other criminal suspects from being taken from their cells and killed, Notimex said.
Residents in the Mexico state town of Tolman recently beat and then held for more than a day in their town square a man suspected of a robbery and shooting. They vowed to kill him if any of his victims died of their wounds.
On this day..
- 2006: James Malicoat, little Pranzini - 2020
- 1816: Joaquim Camacho - 2018
- 1860: Samuel Brust - 2017
- 1767: Thomas Nicholson, hung in chains - 2016
- 1807: Jenkin Ratford, Chesapeake-Leopard affair casualty - 2015
- 1526: 2,000 Hungarian prisoners after the Battle of Mohacs - 2014
- 1876: Jesse Pomeroy's sentence commuted - 2013
- 1887: Henri Pranzini, repentant? - 2012
- 1900: William Black, nearly lynched - 2011
- 1923: Nathan Lee, the last public hanging in Texas - 2010
- 1852: Fatimih Baraghani, Tahirih the pure - 2009
- 1593: Pierre Barrière, undeterringly - 2008
Entry Filed under: 20th Century,Borderline "Executions",Burned,Capital Punishment,Common Criminals,Crime,Death Penalty,Execution,Lynching,Mature Content,Mexico,Murder,Public Executions,Rape,Torture
Tags: 1990s, 1996, august 31, playa vicente, rodolfo hernandez
