A seven-year-old American girl was fatally shot by Mexican police after her family were allegedly mistaken for members of a drug cartel. 

The girl, Aranza Aydelany Pardo, was killed on October 29 while traveling with her family in Matamoros, Mexico, a region near the US – Mexico border where police were carrying out an anti-cartel operation. 

Mexican police opened fire on the girl’s family’s vehicle from a helicopter during the drug enforcement operation, and she was killed after being struck in the head. 

The shooting unfolded after police captured alleged Gulf Cartel gangster Alfredo Cárdenas Rodríguez earlier in the day, which led members of the cartel to enforce blockades throughout the region by burning vehicles and setting up roadblocks. 

The blockades forced Pardo’s family off a highway, but Mexican police reportedly followed them believing they were cartel members trying to get away.  

Tamaulipas Attorney General Jesus Govea said the police helicopter was responding to ‘an attack from the roadblocks’ at the time, but Pardo’s family said they were caught in the crossfire. 

The family say they stopped their car and pleaded with the Mexican police to identify themselves as civilians, but the helicopter proceeded to rain bullets down on their vehicle. 

Mexican authorities said an investigation into the shooting has been opened, but Govea said the officers who opened fire have not been arrested.

A seven-year-old American girl was fatally shot by Mexican police in the border town of Matamoros, Mexico after her family were allegedly mistaken for a drug cartel. Pictured: A stock image of Mexican authorities in Matamoros

Aranza Aydelany Pardo, 7, was killed on October 29 while traveling with her family in Matamoros, Mexico, a border region where police were carrying out an anti-cartel operation

Pardo’s family said she and her five siblings are all American citizens and were born in the USA, and her mother said her family were traveling through Matamoros when police descended on them.

She said the roadblocks caused by the cartel led her family to drive off the highway and onto another route, and a short time later they realized they were being trailed by a helicopter.

Despite her husband’s desperate pleas to the helicopter’s pilot, Aranza’s mother said the police did not see the children inside the car and gunfire erupted moments later. 

She told Fox San Antonio she ordered her children to hide behind her seat as bullets rained down on them, and moments before one of her daughters told her Aranza had been hit. 

‘Five seconds later she told me, “Mommy, they killed (Aranza). They shot her in the head.” Then I grabbed my daughter, and she was already dead,’ she said. 

The mother said she was also hit in the leg by the same bullet that killed her daughter, and said the police helicopter continued circling over her family as they cowered in fear and begged for their lives.

Mexican prosecutors have reportedly confirmed that the bullet that killed Aranza came from a state police helicopter, and prosecutors say they have made ‘significant progress in the course of the investigation.’

The shooting unfolded in Matamoros, Mexico, a region near the US – Mexico border

The violence reportedly erupted following the arrest of Alfredo Cardenas Rodriguez, an alleged high-ranking member of the Gulf Cartel 

The violence was triggered by the arrest on October 29 of Alfredo Cardenas Rodriguez, an alleged high-ranking Gulf Cartel member. 

An image of Rodriguez, known as ‘Axel’ – in handcuffs after his arrest was shared on social media by Mexico’s Security Secretary Omar Garcia Harfuch, celebrating capturing the alleged gangster. 

Harfuch said Rodriguez had been linked to kidnappings, homicides, extortion and trafficking of drugs, weapons and people into the United States.