By The opinion
28 Oct 2023, 12:18 PM EDT
On October 23, an attack was recorded in the municipality of Tacámbaro, Michoacán, which was directed at Ricardo Moriya, brother of the mayor of that town, Artemio Moriya.
Thanks to the timely response of the municipal police, the hitmen did not achieve their objective, but another 5 people lost their lives at the scene, including one of the agents and a gunman.
After the first investigations, it was revealed that behind the attack was the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), a criminal organization that previously threatened the municipal president himself and, a few months ago, murdered one of his nephews.
Due to this situation, a special group of the Civil Guard was appointed to provide special protection to the mayor at all times, as reported to local media by the Secretary of the Government of Michoacán, Elías Ibarra.
The official added that with Artemio Moriya, There are already 12 mayors of said state who have special protection after being threatened by various drug cartels that operate in the entity.
Just last September, authorities provided escorts to Yolanda Sánchez Figueroa, mayor of Cotija, after she was kidnapped by armed men in the state of Jalisco, who released her a few days later.
The identity of the other 10 mayors who have personal security is kept confidential, but in all cases they were given due to the threats they have received from organized crime, Ibarra explained.
Other mayors lost their lives
On this topic, the Secretariat of Public Security (SSP) announced that around 50 police officers guard the mayors and, if they request it, they could put more agents at their disposal.
Unfortunately, Not all the mayors of Michoacán have suffered the same fate and some of them lost their lives.as is the case of Cesar Arturo Valencia Caballero, who governed the municipality of Aguililla until March 2022, when he was murdered in the vicinity of a sports center.
A month before that event, in February 2022, the municipal president of Contepec, Enrique Velázquez Orozco, was found dead after having been missing for 48 hours.
Keep reading:
– Former mayor of Jalisco who had been investigated for ties to drug trafficking is murdered.
– The former mayor of Veracruz is murdered while taking his son to school.