Jose Luis Abarca and his wife, Maria de los Angeles Pineda, the then-mayor and first lady of Iguala, the city where the abductions took place, have been dubbed the "imperial couple." On Sept. 26, authorities say, Pineda was upset that protesting students had commandeered buses to attend a demonstration, worrying that their actions might disrupt an important political event she was headlining. Her husband gave local police the order to make sure that didn't happen. After shooting six students and wounding several others, witnesses said, police handed the remaining 43 over to a local drug gang, Guerreros Unidos, to finish the job. Students who survived the attack said army personnel were in the area and aware of what was happening, yet did nothing to stop the massacre.