Carlos Sanchez and his family had nearly completed the harrowing drive, hurtling along a dark and dangerous highway out of the mountains to a hospital when they collided with a state police truck parked across the highway lights out.

Before they knew what was happening, they were dragged from the car by uniformed police. Sanchez's wife, sister and cousin were loaded into the back of a police patrol truck. They would not see Sanchez, who hours earlier had been shot three times outside his home in Teloloapan, until they arrived at a walled compound in the mountains.

This Oct. 2, 2015 photo shows a framed snapshot of Carlos Sanchez with two deer carcasses, at the home of a relative in Teloloapan, Mexico. In the spring of 2013, four members of Sanchez's family from Guerrero stateís Tierra Caliente, a blistering region of marijuana crops and opium poppies, where drug cartels decapitate their enemies and even priests are not spared a violent death, were abducted near Iguala. (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills)

They had been kidnapped by police.

In April 2013, Sanchez and his cousin Armando de la Cruz Salinas became two more of Mexico's nearly 26,000 recorded disappearances since 2007. The abduction of 43 students from a rural teachers' college in the southern Mexico city of Iguala on Sept. 26, 2014, by local police drew attention to a remarkable fact of life in Mexico: Police are responsible for many disappearances.

Mexico's deputy attorney general for human rights, Eber Betanzos, told The Associated Press in August that municipal police had participated in scores of abductions around Iguala during the term of Mayor Jose Luis Abarca, who faces charges in the case of the 43 students.

In this Oct. 20, 2015 photo, wildflowers grow in a field where the body of taco vendor Carlos Sanchez and dozens other were found almost a year ago, on the outskirts of Iguala, Mexico. After adding the names of their missing to the lists, many families organized to go into the hills around Iguala to search for bodies of the disappeared. Over many weeks and months, government crews dug up the remains of at least 104 people from unmarked graves found by the families, only 13 of which have been identified by DNA and telltale bits of clothing. (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills)

Members of the extended Sanchez family agreed to speak about their missing on condition of anonymity. They wanted to tell the story of the violence that surrounds them like the air they breathe, and of police responsibility for many of what are now called "the other disappeared." But they are deathly scared of the captors and cops who still live among them and operate with impunity, returning at times to abuse or threaten those who might talk.

Sanchez, a 36-year-old taco vendor and father of three, had just returned home with his wife from the grocery store on the evening of April 2, 2013, when a white car pulled up. Two young men got out and confronted him. They tried to force him into the car, but he resisted, and they shot him three times before fleeing.

At the hospital in Teloloapan, a city of 55,000 high in the mountains of Guerrero's Tierra Caliente, staff bandaged Sanchez's wounds, gave him oxygen and an IV, but told his family there was no surgeon to operate. They said he had to go to Iguala for surgery and wrote a letter to that effect to ensure his passage through three military and police checkpoints on the highway between the two cities.

But the ambulance would only agree to carry Sanchez with an armed escort. Soldiers refused to provide one.

In this Oct. 2, 2015 photo, deer antlers mounted as hunting trophies hang inside the home of Carlos Sanchez, in Teloloapan, Mexico. In the spring of 2013, Sanchez was kidnapped and accused of stealing horses from a ranch in Teloloapan. But Sanchez was not a horseman. He liked hunting and cockfights. He said he had been to that ranch only to sell tacos to the masons who were building stables. By the end of the interrogation Sanchez was dead. (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills)

In this Oct. 3, 2015 photo, a dead spider hangs from its web on the side of a road leading to Iguala, in the Mexican state of Guerrero, near the site where taco vendor Carlos Sanchez was last seen, before he was kidnapped by state police along with his wife, sister, and his cousin. The 36-year-old taco vendor, accused of horse stealing, was tortured and beaten to death. (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills)

This Oct. 2, 2015 photo show images of Armando De la Cruz Salinas, some pasted onto a Father's Day poster, at his home in Teloloapan, Mexico. The only thing de la Cruz wanted on April 2, 2013, was to take his cousin, Carlos Sanchez, to the hospital so heíd be saved after he was shot outside his home. On the road to the hospital in Iguala, de la Cruz was temporarily blinded as a Guerrero state police truck aimed its spotlight on them from the highwayís shoulder. This was the last time De la Cruz was seen. Sanchez's body was found in an unmarked grave in the mountains outside Iguala in December 2014. (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills)

In this Oct. 3, 2015 photo, an empty stretch of highway leads to the city of Iguala, in the Mexican state of Guerrero, near the site where four members of the Carlos Sanchez family were abducted by state police. A stocky man wearing a dark state police uniform opened the front passenger door and pulled Sanchezís sister out of the car. They thought they had been arrested, until the truck left the asphalt for a dirt road into the mountains. Then they knew they had been kidnapped by police. (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills)

In this Oct. 1, 2015 photo, a man sits next to a permanent installation memorializing the 43 missing students, outside of the municipal palace in the city of Iguala, Mexico. The disappearance of 43 students at the hands of Iguala police on Sept. 26, 2014 began to unveil the scope of police involvement in Mexicoís nearly 26,000 recorded disappearances. Amid national outrage over the studentsí abduction, hundreds of families came forward to report their missing relatives, many of them also with the complicity of police. (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills)

This Oct. 1, 2015 photo shows the number 43 spray painted on a wall of the partially destroyed municipal palace in Iguala, Mexico. The government building was torched by protesters last year in the aftermath of the disappearance of the 43 students on Sept. 26, 2014. A government investigation into the studentsí disappearance stated that a top commander of Igualaís police managed the Guerreros Unidos drug cartelís police payroll, from the mafia to members of the force. The same commander also oversaw police roadblocks at all of the highway entrances to Iguala--roadblocks that ensured drug loads moved through, that suspected enemies of the cartel were intercepted, and that kidnappers were free to bag their prey. (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills)

In this Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2015 photo, a dirt road leads to a field where the body of Carlos Sanchez was found along with dozens other bodies on Dec. 2014 overlooking the city of Iguala, Mexico. Carlos was last seen being taken away by state police as his relatives were taking him to a hospital after he had been shot by a pair of teenagers. His relatives were also kidnapped but some were freed. The 36-year-old taco vendor was tortured and beaten until he died. His body was found in an unmarked grave in the mountains outside Iguala in December 2014, by families of the other disappeared. (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills)

So after a private clinic in Teloloapan also refused Sanchez care, his cousin, Armando, volunteered to drive. They were en route to the hospital in Iguala when they fell into the hands of police.

At the abductors' compound, lit only by cellphone lights, the family quickly realized they were not alone. There were 15 to 20 other people sitting on the floor of a room blindfolded and tied at the wrists and ankles.

The police took their shoes, belts and anything of value, and pulled their shirts over their heads to obscure their vision, but the cellphone light shone through the thin material and so they saw when Sanchez was dragged in. He was naked except for the bandages, his paper hospital gown lost along the way.

They were surrounded by 10 to 15 men armed with rifles, most wearing the same dark state police uniform.

One kidnapper approached Sanchez with a notebook. He asked his name, where he was from, how many children he had, what he did. Sanchez answered every question. They beat him anyway, kicking and punching.

In this May 13, 2015 photo, Adriana Bahena Cruz holds up a photo of her husband, Saulo Rodriguez Cruz, in Iguala, Mexico. Bahena's husband was a detective with the state prosecutorís office in Iguala. On Jan. 7, 2011, he was in downtown Iguala with his wife and children when he received a call saying there was a development in one of his cases and he needed to come into the office. His wife awoke at 2 a.m. to find he was still not home. When she called him he answered, but she heard the voices of a lot of other men in the background. He said he would be home soon. She never heard from him again. (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills)

In this Aug. 18, 2015 photo, Marcos Javier Mejia Mazon holds up a photo of his brother, Angel Alberto Mejia Mazon, in Iguala, Mexico. Angel Alberto was at Igualaís annual fair in February 2013 with a group of friends when he got into a fight with a stranger. Suddenly an Iguala police truck pulled up and arrested Angel Alberto, a 19-year-old student and waiter. The other guy was let go. His friends suspected he had simply tangled with the wrong stranger. His grandfather went to the police station to look for him, but was told they had no record of his arrest. (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills)

In this May 26, 2015 photo, Jaime Velazquez Betancourt holds up a photo of his son, Jorge Alberto Garcia Valverde, left, and his daughter, Adilene Garcia Valverde, in Iguala, Mexico. On June 29, 2012, Velazquez's son and daughter were just minutes from their home in Cocula returning from dinner with a friend. Witnesses said that between 9:30 and 10 p.m. two Iguala police vehicles stopped them. They took 19-year-old Adilene and 21-year-old Jorge Alberto, along with their friend. None of them have been seen since. The Iguala police told Velazquez they had no record of the arrests and did not have patrol cars in that area that night. (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills)

In this May 13, 2015 photo, Maria del Carmen Abarca holds up a photo of her husband, Saturno Giles Beltran, in Iguala, Mexico. Abarca's husband was an Iguala police officer in the departmentís stolen vehicles unit. It quickly became apparent to the retired soldier that he was the only clean officer in his unit. He warned his wife and daughters to avoid certain parts of Iguala where police took women, and told them never to come to the police station. He was taking classes for a law degree on weekends, promising his wife, that he would leave the police force as soon as he earned his degree. He disappeared on March 8, 2014, driving to class. He called the next day and without specifying who, said they had allowed him a phone call. He said he was clearing up some questions so he could come home. That was the last his wife heard from him. She fears word got out in the police department that he was going to leave and someone decided not to let him. (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills)

The man accused Sanchez of stealing horses from a ranch in Teloloapan. He said he had been to that ranch only to sell tacos to the masons who were building stables. He rattled off his list of taco varieties.

About six men pounced on Sanchez kicking him furiously. When they paused, he turned his face toward his wife, breathed deeply and said the name of his youngest son, Santiago. Then he closed his eyes.

The gunmen stuffed the taco vendor into an army green sleeping bag and carried him outside. The others heard his body land in the back of a truck. His cousin, Armando, was beaten too, and then led out of the house; he was never seen again. The two women were released after 10 days.

After news of the 43 disappeared students ignited the national firestorm, a neighbor who was searching for her son told the Sanchez family that relatives were gathering at a church in Iguala to file reports with federal authorities and give DNA samples. They agreed to join hundreds of other families putting names on a list, many of whom also revealed stories of police taking their loved ones.

The families organized to go into the hills around Iguala to search for bodies of the disappeared. Over many weeks and months, government crews dug up the remains of at least 104 people from unmarked graves found by the families, only 13 of which have been identified by DNA and telltale bits of clothing — or by other articles.

In January, the Sanchez family was told that the gravediggers had unearthed a green sleeping bag with a skeleton inside. Next to it, they found an IV and an oxygen tube.

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Text from the AP news story, In Mexico, fear as victims vanish at hands of police, by Christopher Sherman.

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