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 outsideof the most gang-plagued nations of Central America and poses the most direct challenge yet to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador'spolicy of avoiding violence and rejecting any war on the cartels.
But the cartel has already declared war on the government, aimingto eradicate an elite state force known as the Tactical Group whichthe gang accuses of treating its members unfairly. “If you want war, you'll get a war. We have already shown that weknow where you are. We are coming for all of you,” reads a professionallyprinted banner signed by the cartel and hung on a building in Guanajuatoin May.
“For each member of our firm (CJNG) that you arrest, we are goingto kill two of your Tacticals, wherever they are, at their homes,in their patrol vehicles,” the banner read, referring to the cartelby its Spanish initials.
Officials in Guanajuato — Mexico's most violent state, where Jaliscois fighting local gangs backed by the rival Sinaloa cartel — refusedto 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 cooperativein Guanajuato, said at least seven police officers have been killed on their days off so far this year.
