MEXICO CITY (AP) — The notoriously violent Jalisco cartel has responded to Mexico’s “hugs, not bullets” policy with a policy of its own: The cartel kidnapped several members of an elite police force in the state of Guanajuato, tortured them to obtain names and addresses of fellow officers and is now hunting down and killing police at their homes, on their days off, in front of their families.

It is a type of direct attack on officers seldom seen outside of the most gang-plagued nations of Central America and poses the most direct challenge yet to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s policy of avoiding violence and rejecting any war on the cartels.

But the cartel has already declared war on the government, aiming to eradicate an elite state force known as the Tactical Group which the gang accuses of treating its members unfairly.

“If you want war, you’ll get a war. We have already shown that we know where you are. We are coming for all of you,” reads a professionally printed banner signed by the cartel and hung on a building in Guanajuato in May.

“For each member of our firm (CJNG) that you arrest, we are going to kill two of your Tacticals, wherever they are, at their homes, in their patrol vehicles,” the banner read, referring to the cartel by its Spanish initials.

Officials in Guanajuato — Mexico’s most violent state, where Jalisco is fighting local gangs backed by the rival Sinaloa cartel — refused to comment on how many members of the elite group have been murdered so far.

But state police publicly acknowledged the latest case, an officer who was kidnapped from his home on Thursday, killed and his body dumped on a highway.

Guanajuato-based security analyst David Saucedo said there have been many cases.

“A lot of them (officers) have decided to desert. They took their families, abandoned their homes and they are fleeing and in hiding,” Saucedo said. “The CJNG is hunting the elite police force of Guanajuato.”

Numbers of victims are hard to come by, but Poplab, a news cooperative in Guanajuato, said at least seven police officers have been killed on their days off so far this year. In January, gunmen went to the home of a female state police officer, killed her husband, dragged her away, tortured her and dumped her bullet-ridden body.

Guanajuato has had the highest number of police killed of any Mexican state since at least 2018, according to Poplab. Between 2018 and May 12, a total of 262 police have been killed, or an average of about 75 officers each year — more than are killed by gunfire or other assaults on average each year in the entire United States, which has 50 times Guanajuato’s population.

The problem in Guanajuato has gotten so bad that the state government published a special decree on May 17 to provide an unspecified amount of funding for protection mechanisms for police and prison officials.

“Unfortunately, organized crime groups have shown up at the homes of police officers, which poses a threat and a greater risk of loss of life, not just for them, but for members of their families,” according to the decree.

“They have been forced to quickly leave their homes and move, so that organized crimes groups cannot find them,” it reads.

State officials refused to describe the protection measures, or comment on whether officers were to be paid to rent new homes, or if there were plans to construct special secure housing compounds for them and their families.

“This is an open war against the security forces of the state government,” Saucedo noted.

López Obrador campaigned on trying to deescalate the drug conflict, describing a “hugs, not bullets” approach to tackle the root causes of crime. Since taking office in late 2018, he has avoided openly confronting cartels, and even released one capo to avoid bloodshed, saying he preferred a long-range policy of addressing social problems like youth unemployment that contribute to gang membership.

But former U.S. Ambassador Christopher Landau said in April that López Obrador views the fight against drug cartels “as a distraction ... So he has basically adopted an agenda of a pretty laissez-faire attitude towards them, which is pretty troubling to our government, obviously.”

https://apnews.com/article/caribbean...13b3a5a6a6c266

Half of the police there ARE the Cartels.

Who gives a chit?

Should have pushed everyone south of Panama in 1848.

Mexico not even once

I’m mexican and even I won’t go to Mexico. I stand out like a sore thumb down there because I came to the goat nation as a child.

This is nothing new for Mexico. The police everywhere are basically owned by one cartel or another. Anybody that goes against the cartel( actually try to bring justice) is killed, and even if they work with the cartel, the rival cartel gets upset and kills them.

I honestly am not sure why someone would want to be a cop in Mexico.

Only way to stop them at this point is if the US invaded Mexico and occupied it like we did with Iraq 2003-2010.... and even then it would be a long bloody war.

Imagine the fukking nuts you got swinging to be a non corrupt Mexican police officer. LawdNo easy or quick solutions to their insane violence and power, but starting to diminish their revenue by cutting off the drug prohibition that incentivizes their entire existence would diminish their influence and numbers significantly over time. There is so much blood in the black markets and it ultimately does almost nothing to stop usage and flow

The cartels are more like a military force than just an organized gang. They even have military vehicles.

The foundation of their success is the USA's appetite for illegal drugs.

The USA consumes more drugs than any nation on the planet.

yeah seems like the only way to diminish their power. make it legal then they'll either legitiamize and violence will reduce or big pharma will come in big dik swinging and take over with private armies

my friends keep saying they eant to go to mexico for vacation

The United States is a legal nightmare but it seems obvious as a pure hypothetical that just giving out pharma grade quality product of every substance class, at cost, even without taxation or restrictions, would immensely reduce harm domestically and abroad

Better allocation of money/resources, less violence, less substance deaths, and a dramatic improvement in the safety and quality of living in urban areas.

cartels are cia run organizations

I don't think they run them they just get paid off of it

It's definitely not Christians causing or preventing anything in the USA in the 21st century bro

Huh so the terror attack on January 6th at the Capitol wasn’t a bunch of self proclaiming Trump supporting Christians?

Strange because the Jesus memorabilia they were carrying and Bible verses they were chanting sounded mighty awfully Christian.

Just lol if you think those people have any power or there was any risk of them accomplishing anything that day

That was closer to dungeons and dragons than a terrorist attack

i saw the burn face pic but i'm not gonna watch the video lol

I don't think it's about Christianity, all of these drugs were legal while Christianity was still around.

The only drug I use is tobacco, am trying to quit that.

If people didn't use things like ******* or heroin then the cartels would not have a market.

Then again the government is also involved in the illegal drug trade, both in the purchase and sale. In the end it is all about money.

I'd say it's because those drugs are illegal in the first place

If people didn't use those things is akin to if people didn't breathe oxygen. Could never be stopped without complete technological surveillance and suppression

What's even crazier is that the cartels have provided free grocery delivery services to poor communities during the pandemic.

It seems like their goals are to oppose the state through both militarizing and providing social support. There has been talk about the US military becoming involved with fighting them, the Mexican military is already spending a lot of resources on it.

Well people didn't always use them, and I don't use them either. No one is being forced to buy illegal drugs, but both governments and criminal organizations are involved in the trade.

Even major drug corporations are involved in overprescribing and marketing deadly and addictive drugs. It's ultimately about making a profit.

Not publicly stating that you are an atheist is about as far as that requirement goes lol. The mainstream West is long past religion as a primary driver of anything.

Most people in the West are Christian, all of the major leaders are Christian. I'd say it's a pretty important factor in politics even if it's not like we are living in the Middle Ages under direct rule from the church.

They've always used something. Plus the poppy and it's derivatives have been ubiquitous across many cultures for centuries and had shaped history.

The left in America will be cheering this and praising the cartels are heros

I wouldn't say that people have always used some sort of drug barring alcohol. I'm just saying that people in the US lament and criticize the situation of the cartels, but they are the primary source of business for them.

Even if you legalized all drugs, there is still incentive for a black market or corruption within the legal corporate market. As long as the profit motive exists for the production of drugs, including medicine, there will be corruption and negative consequences.

That is my final thought for this thread.

Definition of terrorism: the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.

Those terrorists were using violence and intimidation in the pursuit of overturning a democratic vote.

Facts don’t care about your feelings snowflake

White Christian Terrorists!

Mexico’s president is a coward.

Only way to stop it is an all out war. Go Duterte mode and wipe each cartel out, no mercy. There will be so much blood, so much heat. But basically public execution for any members of the cartel. No trial, no arrests. Use drones, military weapons, communication interception. Find them and wipe them out to the point anyone who would dare would have to think twice about joining the cartel.

Ultimately, the government has to be a cartel of its own but way bigger and badder that it squashes all the little cartels out.

I’m not sure legalising ******* is an option.