Two police officers were killed in Celaya, Mexico, as part of a wave of targeted killings that authorities said were most likely carried out by a drug cartel on Thursday.
So far this year, 18 Celaya police officers have been shot dead, making the metropolis of 500,000 people the most hazardous place in the hemisphere for cops.
“This is something that worries us a lot, and more than that, it hurts,” stated President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Officials confirmed that attackers opened fire on police in at least four distinct sites in and around Celaya on Wednesday. According to police and the federal authorities, the ruthless Santa Rosa de Lima gang appears to have carried out the attacks.
According to an employee of the Celaya police force who was not authorized to talk publicly about the incident, gunmen opened fire on three unarmed municipal traffic officials who were putting up a roadblock to check car registrations.
The employee stated that two officers were killed in the incident, while a third was injured and in stable condition at a local hospital.
López Obrador claimed the attacks had become cruel and indiscriminate, blaming lenient or corrupt judges.
“Why bother the traffic cops?” López Obrador explained. “Moreover, they were not carrying guns.”
The president speculated that the attacks may have been motivated by a judge’s decision in June to grant a type of bail to the son of the Santa Rosa cartel’s imprisoned founder. The son was detained in January on charges of illegally possessing guns and drugs.
On Thursday, López Obrador exhibited a summary of the attacks, revealing that one group of gunmen attacked traffic officers on a street in broad daylight. Soon after, gunmen fired bullets at another police patrol car, but no one was injured, and then rained gunfire on a local police building, again with no one injured.
However, police were attacked later Wednesday in the nearby town of Villagran, 12 miles west of Celaya, with one officer apparently critically wounded.
According to the Celaya police employee, members of the force believe they have not received appropriate backing from the federal and state governments, leaving the relatively small local police contingent to cope with the violent Santa Rosa gang mostly on their own.
López Obrador has cut off much of the federal cash that was formerly used to educate Mexican police forces, instead spending it on the creation of the quasi-military National Guard, which has 117,000 officers.
However, military-trained Guard officers usually conduct routine patrols rather than the type of investigations and arrests that police do. Furthermore, López Obrador is also advocating for a constitutional amendment to give the Guard, which is currently officially managed by the Public Safety Department, full military control.
State is Beset By Cartel-Related Violence
Celaya is in the north-central state of Guanajuato, where almost 60 police officers were killed in 2023, more than in the entire United States.
Guanajuato has the highest homicide rate of any state in Mexico, owing primarily to drug cartel violence. For years, the Santa Rosa cartel has engaged in a violent turf war with the Jalisco cartel over control of Guanajuato.
In addition to police, politicians and people have been attacked. Last month, six members of the same family were slain in Guanajuato, including an infant and a toddler. In April, a Guanajuato mayoral candidate was shot dead on the street as she began campaigning.
According to CBS Last December, 11 people were killed and another dozen were injured in an attack on a pre-Christmas party in the state. Just days before, the bodies of five university students were discovered packed inside a vehicle on a dusty road in Guanajuato.
The United States State Department advises Americans to reconsider visiting to Guanajuato. “Of particular concern is the high number of murders in the state’s southern region associated with cartel-related violence,” according to the department’s travel recommendation.
Mexico has recorded over 450,000 homicides since 2006, when the government sent the military to combat drug trafficking, with the majority of them blamed on criminal gangs.