A 7-year-old girl who held dual U.S. and Mexican citizenship was shot and killed during a Mexican security operation targeting an alleged cartel member. Her mother says officers aboard a police helicopter fired the fatal shot.
Aranza Aidelany Pardo was killed Oct. 29 in Matamoros, a Mexican border city across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas. She was one of six people who died during the operation and the roadblocks later established by the Gulf Cartel, according to The Associated Press.
Aranza’s mother, Claudia Pardo García, told the AP that gunfire from a Tamaulipas state police helicopter struck her daughter in the head. Pardo herself suffered a leg wound.
Tamaulipas Public Security Secretary Carlos Arturo Pancardo said authorities are investigating three officers aboard the helicopter. The officers remain on active duty.
The Rio Grande is pictured from an international bridge in Matamoros, Mexico, on Jan. 15, 2026. A 7-year-old American girl was killed in the border city during a Mexican security operation. (Gabriel V. Cardenas/AFP via Getty Images)
The operation led to the arrest of Axel Alfredo Cárdenas Rodríguez, known as El Titán. He is the son of an alleged Gulf Cartel leader and the nephew of the group’s imprisoned founder, Osiel Cárdenas Guillén.
Pardo told the AP that she, her husband and their five children were heading home when they encountered cartel roadblocks. The family then took a rural detour.
According to Pardo, a police helicopter followed their vehicle and then circled in front of it. Her husband got out with his hands raised to show officers that they were a family, but gunfire soon broke out.
Aranza was hit in the head, and Pardo was shot in the leg. Pardo said emergency responders took more than two hours to reach them.
Mexican officials reported roadblocks throughout Tamaulipas after two arrests in Matamoros, shown above, heightened security concerns in the region bordering Texas. (Mahe Elipe/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Tamaulipas state prosecutor Jesús Govea said investigators had interviewed witnesses and were examining video and ballistic evidence to determine who fired the fatal shot.
Pardo told the AP that FBI representatives and U.S. consular officials contacted her family after the shooting.
The FBI, State Department and Tamaulipas prosecutor’s office did not immediately respond to News Outlet’s requests for comment.
