Santa Cruz couple carjacked in Mexico
A Santa Cruz couple is glad to be home safe in the United States after being robbed at gunpoint while on vacation in Mexico.
CNN- Earlier this month, Chug and Lalita Kirkman and their 3-year-old son had been visiting Lalita’s parents in Mexico. The family was traveling with them from the Kirkman’s property in the state of Guerrero to her parent’s house in Michoacan.
During the drive four men demanded everything the family had. They took phones, wallets, their bags, and then drove off in their truck, which was towing their parent’s jeep, too. The robbers even took Lalita’s mom’s dog. The family was stranded and some of them weren’t even wearing shoes.
A stranger gave them a ride back to the toll plaza they had passed earlier, but the Kirkmans said they got no help from the people working there, almost as if they were working with the criminals.
Finally Lalita’s uncle came to the rescue so they could go back to Lalita’s parents. The family had a four-hour bus ride ahead of them in the middle of the night to get to the nearest US Embassy in Guadalajara.
Even at the Embassy the family felt hopeless until someone finally agreed to see them. It took hours to get them emergency passports which cost $400. They couldn’t use their dad’s credit card since he wasn’t there with them.
The couple called their Hare Krishna Temple back home in California and the temple sent money through someone at a temple in Mexico.
After the journey home, the Kirkmans said they felt their own government let them down and they don’t expect anything to happen with the crime which they’ve tried unsuccessfully to report in both countries.
