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For five consecutive years, the family and friends of the deceased teen have remembered his tragics
death in the same public spot where they began their protests in August of 2003.
Por Eduardo Barraza
BARRIOZONA
August 25, 2008
The blown-up image of Mario Madrigal Jr. imprinted on a large vinyl sign stands out in the middle of the city of Mesa Police
headquarters parking lot, rising above the dozens of people who have congregated to commemorate the five years since
his tragic death.
“My bloods claims justice!”, can be read in both English and Spanish on the big banner, and the barely sketched semi
smile of the teen who’d die in a burst of bullets contrasts with the somber motive for which his family, friends and
members of the community have come together on this sweaty summer’s afternoon.
The scene is anything but new. For five consecutive years, the parents of the deceased teen have remembered his death
in the same public spot where they began their protests in August of 2003, when Mario Madrigal, Jr. was shot and killed by
Mesa Police officers. A five-year period some think should have by now closed the wounds, faded the pain, and quenched
their hope for justice.
The time that passed by has had an opposite effect, however, since five years later, the memory of the way and the
circumstances in which Mario Madrigal, Jr. was killed has gradually increased in strength, to the point of becoming not only
a case that resists to be forgotten, but it seems to have taken the form of a permanent struggle.
Officially, the case of the 15-year old teen who was under the effects of alcohol, supposedly attacked the officers who were
called to take him to a rehabilitation center, was impacted with taser guns, and finally shot to death with bullets at least ten
times, is closed. The family’s version was rebutted and denied.
Nevertheless, by demonstrating each year Mario and Martha Madrigal, Mario’s parents, have been able to keep a flame
alight, and in doing so, they are continuously reminding the community, fundamentally, about their son’s death. At the
same time, symbolically, they continue to remind us about the death of a troubled teenager who struggled with alcohol,
and desperately needed help. Even more poignantly, they have been able to maintain the pressure on the fact that a high
school’s junior -who would have turned 21 this September- was brutally shot and killed by the police.
Whatever the outcome of an upcoming case in a federal court this September, the death of Mario Madrigal, Jr. refuses to be
erased from the collective memory of a community that tends to forget too soon. Perhaps the death of the boy who stills
timidly smiles from the picture on the banner can help us all -directly or indirectly, as parents or just as members of the
society- to think about the “Marios” who are still alive today, whether we are providing alcohol to a minor who has to go to
school tomorrow, calling 911 to plea for help, or wearing a police badge and a gun.
Copyright © 2008 Hispanic Institute of Social Issues
Grassroots Journalism
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The Other "Marios" Who Are Still Alive - The Case of Mario
Madrigal, Jr.
Grassroots Journalism
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