Mexican cartels are hunting down police at their homes

This is an organized police gang hunt that is rarely seen outside of Central America’s most gang-populated countries and poses a direct challenge to the president.

The violent and notorious Jalisco Cartel responds to Mexico’s “hug, not bullet” policy with its own policy. Police are currently tracking and killing police at home, on holidays, and in front of their families.

This is a direct attack on officers of a type rarely seen outside of Central America’s most gang-populated countries, and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who avoids violence and refuses to war with cartels. It poses the most direct challenge to the president’s policy to date.

However, the cartel has already declared war on the government and aims to eradicate the elite National Army, known as the Tactical Group, which accuses gangs of mistreating members.

“If you want war, you will be at war. We have already shown that we know where you are. We are coming for all of you,” the cartel said. Signed by and written with a professionally printed banner hung on the Guanajuato building in May.

“For each member of our office (CJNG) you arrested, we will kill two of your tacticals, wherever they are, at home or in a patrol car,” referring to the cartel in Spanish initials. It is written on the banner. ..

Officials in Guanajuato, Mexico’s most violent state where Jalisco is fighting a local gang backed by rival Sinaloa Cartel, refused to comment on the number of elite group members killed so far did.

However, state police publicly acknowledged the latest incident in which a police officer kidnapped from his home was killed on Thursday and his body was abandoned on the highway.

David Saucedo, a security analyst based in Guanajuato, said there were many cases.

“Many of them (executives) have decided to escape. They take their families, abandon their homes, run away and hide,” Saused said. “CJNG is hunting the elite police in Guanajuato.”

Although it’s difficult to keep track of the number of victims, Guanajuato’s press partner Poprab said at least seven police officers had been killed on holidays so far this year. In January, a gunman went to a female state police officer’s house, killing her husband, dragging her out, torturing her, and throwing her body covered in bullets.

According to Poplab, Guanajuato has killed more police than any state in Mexico since at least 2018. Between 2018 and May 12, a total of 262 police officers, an average of about about 262 police officers each year. 75 police officers were killed. That’s more than the death toll from shootings and other attacks across the United States, which makes up 50 times the population of Guanajuato. ..

The problem in Guanajuato is exacerbated, and on May 17, the state government issued a special decree that would provide an unspecified amount of money to the protection mechanisms of police and prison staff.

According to the law, “Unfortunately, organized crime groups have emerged at police officers’ homes, pose a life-threatening threat to police officers as well as members of their families, and pose a greater risk.”

“Organized crime groups can’t find them because they’re forced to leave home and move right away.”

State officials refuse to explain the safeguards and plan to pay police to rent a new home or to build a special safe housing complex for them and their families. I commented on whether.

“This is an open war against state government security forces,” Saused pointed out.

Lopez Obrador explained a “hug rather than bullet” approach to addressing the root cause of crime and campaigned to mitigate the drug conflict. He has been openly since taking office in late 2018. He said he prefers long-term policies to address social issues such as youth unemployment, which contributes to gang membership by releasing one capo to avoid facing the cartel and avoiding bloodshed.

But former US ambassador Christopher Landau said in April that Lopez Obrador saw the fight against drug cartels as “distracting.” ”