A single man with a short weapon at the top of the Pyramid of the Moon, in the busy archaeological zone of Teotihuacán (State of Mexico). Among the terrified people are many foreign tourists. In the videos that have jumped on the networks, you can see them chested on the ground or hidden behind the stones that protrude from the pyramid itself. The murderer – who killed a person of Canadian nationality – walks slowly at that height that he has chosen as a setting. He seems aware that they are watching him, recording him, fearing him. Everyone is petrified as the attacker, identified as Julio César Jasso Ramírez, 27, walks to his luggage, bends down, probably extracts cartridges, and then, weapon in hand, a .38 caliber revolver, returns.
The videos, recorded dozens of meters away by visitors at the foot of the pyramid, do not allow us to observe the small details, but they do reveal the broad image, the deplorable feat of the murderer before the world: Jasso Ramírez, who is wearing military clothing, swings his arm with the gun, points it at the sky, then towards the people lying face down, and fires once, twice, three times. Thus, the shots spaced by a short macabre rest, as if each detonation and its interval were a coded message.
The attacker injured seven people with the weapon. Six others suffered bodily injuries and fractures in the heat of the fray. According to the Prosecutor’s Office of the State of Mexico, Jasso Ramírez committed suicide with his own revolver, after having been wounded in the leg by members of the National Guard, who arrived at the site to deal with the crisis. The authorities waited until the day after the massacre, which occurred on Monday, to provide details that allow us to understand the crime of a lone wolf, who has chosen a random crowd. It is inevitable to think about the , to which Mexicans are not accustomed.
It is now known that the murderer was originally from the municipality of Tlapa (State of Guerrero) – which has a huge indigenous population – and lived in Mexico City, according to the identification that the authorities found among his belongings. In a backpack he carried dozens of cartridges, a knife and pamphlets related to the , Colorado, United States, which occurred on April 20, 1999, taken by him as an anniversary. The Mexican Prosecutor’s Office considers that Jasso Ramírez had “a psychopathic profile” that made him a copycata copycat that replicates iconic crimes. His inspiration was the two Columbine students who murdered 12 classmates and a teacher with assault rifles, and injured 24 more people. Afterwards, they committed suicide. That fact has become one of the biggest images of the gun epidemic and its victims in the United States. The revolver that Jasso Ramírez used, a Smith & Wesson, was in itself a relic of the 1960s from the North American country.
The profile of the victims – all foreigners – and the signs chosen by the attacker provide more clues about a crime motivated by hate, no matter how much the Prosecutor’s Office of the State of Mexico insists that Jasso Ramírez simply had “a psychopathy, a condition, an illness.” “He was disconnected from the real world,” said the prosecutor, José Luis Cervantes, and added: “He left some notes where he said he had some inspiration beyond Earth.” The newspaper Millennium He found that Jasso Ramírez was a follower of Hitler and even published photographs of him giving the Nazi salute, which brings him closer to the fascist extreme right. In fact, another anniversary that fell on the same day as Jasso Ramírez’s crime was the birth of the German fascist leader.
A video that was recorded closely by one of the victims he was holding hostage captures the murderer giving a nationalist, xenophobic and misogynistic speech. “And you who have come from fucking Europe are not going to return,” he said, imitating peninsular Spanish. He threatens them: “If you move, I will sacrifice you! This [la pirámide] It was built for sacrifice, bastards, not for you to come and take a fucking photo of shit.” He adds that he has “sacrificed like dogs” to “two Koreans.” You hear – the image is in black, because whoever recorded it had hidden his cell phone – that he calls a tourist a “fucking fucking Portuguese,” and then a “disgusting Brazilian.” He calls a woman to whom he gives orders a “bitch,” a “whore,” “stupid.” “Move, bitch, as if you were going to fuck!”
Networks in Mexico have made reference to the T-shirt worn by Jasso Ramírez, which had the legend “Disconnect & Self-Destruct” printed on it, commonly used in the True Crime Community (TCC), in which the Columbine killers were involved. While Jasso Ramírez’s relationship with the TCC has not been officially established, the truth is that they have warned of the proliferation of the ideas of that diffuse organization, especially regarding “performative violence” or . This stamp is repeated in apparently unconnected crimes, in different countries, where the murder weapon can be a gun or a knife, where the victims are random people in a crowd, and where the common denominator is that the attacker is always a man.
This unusual crime occurs as an echo of the murder, just three weeks ago, in Michoacán, of , who used an AK-47 assault rifle. Moments before the homicide, the boy recorded himself in front of his mirror posing with the gun. In other loose stories uploaded to his networks, he published messages that identify him with the machosphere of the community incelan extremist movement of men who profess hatred towards women and claim a hurt and resentful masculinity. Another similar crime occurred within a high school at the prestigious UNAM, in September 2025. A student was murdered with a knife by a 19-year-old man who entered the campus to attack him. The perpetrator made several publications on the networks where he described himself as . In forums incels (term for “involuntary celibates”, men who consider themselves despised by women), wrote messages that revealed his willingness to kill.
Last week, Mexico celebrated ―at an average of 50 monthly―, after the long period of violence framed in the war against drugs. The murder of Teotihuacán reflects another type of violence that has nested outside the cartels, driven by extremist hatred and that captures men. A phenomenon that has jumped from digital forums to the streets, with tragic real consequences. For now, Mexico has announced that security measures will be reinforced in archaeological zones to protect visitors. But the problem is bigger and requires specific attention from the Mexican State.
