On Friday, June 10, 2022, thirty-oneyear-old Daniel Picazo, a lawyer and political consultant from Mexico City, was visiting his grandfather in the rural town of Las Colonias de Hidalgo, about three hours northeast of the capital. Picazo, described by his father as “intelligent and studious,” had recently graduated with a master’s degree and was visiting the town for a vacation. Shortly before midnight, smartphones around the town—and in the nearby indigenous community of Papatlazolco—began buzzing with urgent WhatsApp group chat messages about Picazo.
A local had noticed Picazo’s out of state license plates and, for some reason, suspected he was there for sinister purposes. The anonymous, viral warnings claimed that Picazo had kidnapped an adolescent, intending to kill the child and harvest its organs. As the messages spread from phone to phone and person to person throughout the night, a mob of about 200 people gathered. They tracked Picazo down and demanded justice. Police tried to intervene and secure Picazo’s safety by putting him in a patrol car away from the mob, but that just confirmed for many that he was being arrested—presumably for the child abduction or killing they’d seen described in the warning messages flooding their phones. The villagers overwhelmed the police, pulled Picazo from the car, and dragged him to a nearby field. There they tied his hands and beat him with fists and boards.