January 1st 2025.
Five days had passed since a tragic incident in Mexico that left a young teenager from Chicago with a bullet in his head. The teen, Jason Peña, was finally being flown back to the United States on Wednesday for treatment while his family continued to mourn the loss of his father and uncle, who were also victims of the shooting.
According to immigration advocate Julie Contreras, who has been working closely with the family, Jason had been in a coma in a Mexican hospital since the incident on Friday night. He was shot along with his father, uncle, and another man while traveling on a dangerous road near Santiago Papasquiaro in the state of Durango. The family had been visiting relatives in Mexico over the holidays, with Jason's younger brother and uncle from Chicago joining them later on.
Contreras shared that the father and uncle had decided to drive to get more food and drinks, accompanied by another man. Jason, being the adventurous teen he was, had jumped into the car with his father without hesitation. However, when they failed to return, a search party was sent out, only to discover that all four of them had been shot. Sadly, Jason's father and uncle did not survive, while the other man and Jason were both injured.
The Peña and Fernandez families were all U.S. citizens, with Jason attending eighth grade at Prairie-Hills Junior High School in Markham. The U.S. State Department, when questioned about the shooting, confirmed that two U.S. citizens had died and a minor had been injured. They also mentioned that the Mexican authorities were currently investigating the incident.
Contreras stated that the family was still unsure of who had shot them, and the State Department had issued travel cautions for Durango due to high levels of violent crime and gang activity. In fact, the area where the shooting took place was considered so dangerous that U.S. government employees were not allowed to travel there.
After the incident, Jason's mother, Ana Cabral, flew to Mexico to be with her sons and immediately began working to get Jason to Texas Children's Hospital in Houston for better care and security. With the help of Contreras, the family managed to raise enough funds to cover the cost of the two-hour medical flight from the Mexican public hospital to the facility in Houston.
"Our priority is to get him here," Contreras stated before the flight on Wednesday afternoon. "And today, God has allowed us to accomplish that."
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