David Lara Cruz, a police officer serving in the city of Acayucan, Veracruz, was detained by his police colleagues, who took him to an unknown location and took his life, according to the General Prosecutor's Office of the State.
In a virtual hearing held from the Pacho Viejo prison in Coatepec, Javier Duarte, former governor of Veracruz, succeeded in having a control judge dismiss the charges for the forced disappearance of Lara Cruz in 2016. This decision came just before Duarte completed a year of sentence for other crimes.
In response to this ruling, the current governor of Veracruz, Cuitlátlahuac García, reacted by stating that "the last word has not yet been said" and that they will not allow them to get away with it. Javier Duarte was arrested in Guatemala in 2017 and later extradited to Mexico the same year.
In November 2022, Duarte was linked to the process for the crime of the forced disappearance of David Lara Cruz, with justified preventive imprisonment imposed as a precautionary measure for a year and a half to carry out the corresponding investigation.
David Lara Cruz, who disappeared in January 2016 while at the facilities of the Secretariat of Public Security to take trust control exams, was a state police officer from Veracruz, 34 years old at the time, and left behind a five-month-old baby and a 12-year-old daughter.