REUTERSĪnd in January, six members of a family were murdered in a rural community in Guanajuato state - the fifth such attack in the municipality of Silao in four months.ĭespite the troubling rise in gangland murders, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has championed a “hugs not bullets” strategy, arguing that violent crime should be tackled by focusing on fighting poverty and inequality with social programs, rather than with the army. Wars between rival cartels have turned Guanajuato into one of Mexico’s most violent regions. In March, the charred bodies of seven people were found abandoned in a pick-up truck in Celaya, Agence France-Presse noted.
Government data show there were 993 homicides in the first four months of 2022 in Guanajuato, giving it the second-highest total behind the western state of Michoacan. When a gunman opened fire last Sunday in Orlando, Florida gay nightclub Pulse, killing at least 49 and injuring 53, the event seemed singular in its senseless hate for LGBTQ. Guanajuato has become one of the most violent regions of Mexico in recent years, as drug gangs battle for control. Photos from the scene suggest that the shooters were accusing the bar owners of supporting a rival gang. Gunman Omar Mateen was shot and killed by police after the June 2016 attack Graphic surveillance video of the Pulse shooting released Edited courtroom video begins by showing Omar. Mexico’s National Guard, the Defense Ministry and Guanajuato state security forces were searching for the gunmen, security officials said. The bloodbath came just hours after three dismembered bodies were found nearby in plastic bags - also containing warning messages left on cardboard, according to Telemundo 20. Photos posted on social media suggested the killers were from the Santa Rosa de Lima gang - seemingly accusing the bars’ owners of supporting the rival Jalisco cartel, according to The Associated Press. REUTERS Eight of the victims in the shooting were women. Eleven people were killed in a shooting at a Mexico hotel that is being linked to cartel warfare. Pieces of cardboard with messages “alluding to a criminal group” were found at the scene, local security officials said in a statement. As many as five others were injured, local reports said. Seven women and three men were pronounced dead at the scene, and an eleventh victim - another woman - later died in a hospital, according to security and government officials. Some of the estimated 15 hooded gunmen also lobbed Molotov cocktails in the bars, with one of the establishments badly burned.ĭisturbing photos on social media showed women heaped in pools of blood between tables, with one body on the sidewalk.
The coordinated attacks in the central Mexican city of Celaya saw more than 50 shots fired in an ambush that lasted less than a minute, witnesses told local TV station Telemundo 20. More than a dozen gunmen shot dead 11 people - including eight women - at a Mexican hotel and its two bars in a massacre being linked to cartel warfare, according to authorities and reports. Texas shooter’s grandma ‘may never be able to talk again’ after being shot: kin President Biden suggests razing Texas elementary school where 21 people were killed: state senator While murders across the state dropped slightly to 339 in August from 403 in July, they may be rebounding in September as gang members fight to fill the vacuum left by Yépez Ortiz’s detention.Joe Rogan opposes gun control: ‘Only criminals are gonna have them’ĭaughter of slain Texas teacher, dad who died of broken heart pens moving tribute to parents
The detained leader of the Santa Rosa de Lima gang, José Antonio Yépez Ortíz, was better known by his nickname “El Marro,” which means “The Sledgehammer.” He had long fought a bloody turf battle with the Jalisco cartel, and authorities blamed him for much of the violence in the industrial and farming state. Guanajuato has been the most violent state in Mexico in recent years, but authorities had hoped the detention of a leader of a local gang on Aug. Eli Valdez, 40, spoke about the stealthy feat required to enter a Santa Fe gay bar 20 years ago: walking coyly past and hoping the door would fling open at the right moment so he could slip in. There was no immediate information on a possible motive in the attack, but it bore the signs of a drug gang killing.
Local media reported the four dead women may have been employed as dancers at the bar, located on the side of a highway. The area is near the border with Michoacán state, which has been a point of incursion for the Jalisco cartel, which wants to move into Guanajuato. State prosecutors said the bullet-ridden bodies were found at a bar near the town of Jaral del Progreso. Gunmen killed 11 people, including four women, early Sunday in a bar in the central Mexico state of Guanajuato.