The attack in Torreón

Two 18-year-old twin brothers carried out an attack at Secondary School Number 13 in Ejido La Unión, on the outskirts of Torreón in the northern state of Coahuila, on Thursday morning. The assailants, former students of the school dressed in black, entered the facility around 8:30 a.m. during a transition between classes when approximately 170 pupils were moving through the hallways. Armed with machetes, knives, and firecrackers, the attackers shouted a threat stating that they were coming for all the women, before detonating explosive devices across the premises. The explosions created immediate panic, forcing students and teachers to run into classrooms and stack desks and chairs against doors to bar entry.

Casualties and community intervention

Vice principal Nery Edith Nevárez González died from blade wounds sustained near the school entrance, prompting dozens of community members to gather outside the gates on Thursday night for a memorial vigil. Four other people suffered injuries during the assault, including Spanish teacher Ricardo Quintanar, who was attacked in the corridor and remains hospitalized in serious condition. The violence also extended into a restroom where a first-year pupil was injured, leaving the student under guarded medical care, while a second teacher and another woman were wounded, with the woman listed in stable condition. Hearing the explosions, local neighbours rushed onto the campus, pursued the suspects through the corridors, and physically restrained them on the ground until state police arrived to take them into custody.

Investigation and extremist inspiration

Coahuila State Attorney General Federico Fernández explained that the suspects acted on personal resentment directed at the institution and its teachers. According to state authorities, the twin brothers came from a disrupted family background and had spent time on digital forums following past mass casualty events in other countries. Fernández noted that the two youths sought to emulate international perpetrators of school and university massacres.

“They are pseudo-fanatics of figures who have committed similar acts in other latitudes, attacks on schools and universities.”

The incident revived memories of a school attack six years earlier at Colegio Cervantes in Torreón, where a student influenced by the Columbine massacre killed a teacher and wounded six pupils.

Federal legislative push

Following the attack in Torreón, President Claudia Sheinbaum announced on Friday that the federal government will submit a draft bill next week requiring social media platforms to remove content that promotes violence and hate speech. The proposed measure aims to curb the online radicalization of teenagers and restrict access to digital groups glorifying school massacres. Coahuila state officials pledged to expand preventive security mechanisms in schools, where bag checks and transparent backpacks are already standard practice in several regions. The federal security cabinet confirmed its participation in the ongoing investigation, coming two days after an unrelated school stabbing in Querétaro injured three staff members and one student.