The accused and the weapon used to shoot. Photo: Jalisco Public Prosecutor’s Office.
Jaime G., a senior citizen accused of shooting at a group of children playing outside his house and killing a three year old girl, will remain in preventive custody until his legal situation is resolved.
Arrested on June 3 for the girl’s murder, Jaime G. is also accused of attacking the deceased minor’s father with a firearm, when the father attacked him after his daughter was shot. The home is located on Lauro Caloca street at the intersection with Francisco Dávalos Flores, in Tizapán El Alto on Chapala’s south shore.
The father was wounded in the back of the head and right shoulder after lunging at Jaime G., who was himself injured in the chest. Jaime G. then took refuge in his home, where he was captured by police and a 9mm handgun was recovered.
The house arrest proposed by the defendant’s counsel was opposed by the Public Prosecutor’s Office because of the danger that Jaime G. represents to the victim’s father as well as to the neighborhood’s inhabitants. Instead, the judge ordered him to stand trial for the aggravated murder of the child as well as the attempted homicide of the victim’s father, and the judge ordered that Jaime G. remain in preventive detention in a penitentiary for one year.
Translated by MaryAnne Marble
Goretti Chavira, photographed outside. Credit: Courtesy of the artist
Alma Serrano (San Juan Cosalá).- Goretti Chavira is a 29-year-old artist born in Guadalajara, currently living in San Juan Cosalá. Despite many difficulties, she taught herself how to paint, and practiced whenever she could. She improved her skills quickly, moving around Lake Chapala. Her motivation has always been to try new things, new methods, new materials, to get closer to her goal of becoming her best as an artist.
She started making art when she was five by doing portraits of her relatives. Between the ages of six and seven, she made and sold her first work. This experience at such a young age activated her passion for what she has been doing for the past 22 years. Although Goretti has worked in different jobs throughout her life, she never gave up her dream of making a living from her art.
She experiments with techniques and styles, from different periods. In most of her works she includes herself symbolically. When asked about where she gets her inspiration, Goretti says she gets most of her ideas from dreams. Her paintings and clay sculptures all contain an air of magical realism.
In 2020, she decided to dedicate her life fully to her art. These days Goretti regularly exhibits her work in art exhibitions around Lake Chapala. She works in various media including oil and acrylic paintings, watercolors, pencil drawings, clay sculptures and tattoos.
In addition to painting, she also works with children at the Voz al Viento Gallery in San Juan Cosalá. She says her work with children is very important to her, because she wants to give them opportunities she never had when she was their age. It’s important to her that they have a strong role model as a person, and an artist, «as an artist I feel a responsibility to show that we are all capable of expressing ourselves and creating more sensitive minds. Whether it’s seeing a work in which we see ourselves, or seeing someone else summon the courage to take the first step, we never know how far our dreams can go.»
Translated by Amy Esperanto
The symbolic cross fell after a strong storm, now only the base can be seen. Photo: Gilberto Padilla.
Jazmín Stengel (Chapala).- A strong storm on June 9 knocked down the legendary Cross of San Miguel Hill in Chapala. Legend says if this happens, there will be no protection to keep the dragon asleep.
For hundreds of years, the locals considered San Miguel hill, across from the municipal capital’s main plaza, a place where evil hides. Rubén Pulido Hernández, author of the book “Chapala entre las Fábulas y Leyendas” (Chapala’s Fables and Legends), says that’s why there are traces of ancient civilization only at the foot of the hill itself, not at the top.
According to Pulido, the ancient natives and the first Franciscan missionaries who arrived in the Chapala area around 1524, sometimes saw flames on the hill. That prompted numerous legends.
Hundreds of years later, Pulido said, a geologist discovered minerals and gasses on the hill that are flammable when in contact with oxygen. That’s what caused the fires to be visible at night.
According to the legend, the greatest friar of the Franciscan order decided to go up the hill and fight this fire-breathing demon. Upon reaching the top of the hill, which is not very high, the missionary built a hermitage just above where gasses or minerals came out. This somehow managed to prevent the fire from “appearing” out of nowhere. To honor this father who “defeated the devil” and lived to tell the tale, the first cross was placed on the hill of San Miguel, probably made of wood.
The date of its construction has not yet been determined. Local inhabitants estimate that it was between 1920 and 1930, made of stone and cement. It fell before it was a hundred years old.
Over time that belief became the legend of the sleeping dragon. Some believe that the hill is hollow, and a river of thermal water flows at the bottom of its entrails. Others think it is a volcano that never erupted. But what they all share is that the cross symbolizes protection.
The shape of the Dragon
Sailors on Lake Chapala used the hills as a reference and began to say that it has the shape of a dragon. The tip of San Miguel Hill is the head and the body continues between what is now the area of Riberas del Pilar and the Ajijic Highway.
The cross symbolized a sword stuck in the head of the beast, which kept it still so that it could not harm the people. “The interesting thing is to know what is going to happen now,” asked Rubén Pulido.
Translated by Mike Rogers
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