Tagged: Guadalajara

‘A smell of death’: Mexico’s truck of corpses highlights drug war crisis

(THE GUARDIAN) — by David Agren

The news that authorities used a truck trailer to store 273 corpses offers a symbol for a crisis in Mexico that affords no dignity to its victims.

The first sign something was amiss came when the 18-wheeler lumbered into the dilapidated neighborhood of Paseos del Valle on the outskirts of Guadalajara.

The truck itself was unremarkable – a white tractor unit pulling a refrigerated trailer emblazoned with a polar bear logo – but it came with a police escort. And as the massive vehicle pulled on to a muddy track between the last row of houses and a corn field, dogs across the neighborhood began to bark wildly at the stench it released.

“It was a smell of death,” recalled Alejandro Espinosa, a hospital maintenance worker who lives nearby.
The truck was discovered by the public in the dilapidated neighborhood of Paseos del Valle on the outskirts of Guadalajara.

A crowd quickly gathered, and when the truck became stuck in the mud, several youths pushed past the police and forced open the trailer doors.

Inside were scores of human bodies, wrapped in garbage bags, bound with duct tape and piled haphazardly on top of each other.

Local authorities eventually confirmed that 273 corpses had been dumped in the trailer after the relentless pace of violent crime left the local morgue without any space for new arrivals. For nearly two weeks, the truck had been drifting around the suburban hinterland of Mexico’s second city.

As the scandal escalated, Jalisco officials were forced to admit that they had been using stationary trailers to store bodies for at least two years.

The macabre discovery came on the country’s national holiday, and seemed to offer a damning comment on the state of the nation: in the 12 years since Mexico launched its militarized war on drugs, more than 200,000 people have died and another 35,000 gone missing.

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Self-defense forces forming in Jalisco? ‘It’s time for the criminals to clear off and steal from somewhere else’

(MEXICO NEWS DAILY) — In the face of rising levels of crime in Jalisco there is evidence that self-defense forces have formed in the state capital.

People presumed to be residents of Guadalajara are using social media to recruit new members to vigilante groups to patrol the streets of neighborhoods plagued by crime, such as Jardines Alcalde, the newspaper Reforma reported today.

The attitude of the posts accompanied by the hashtag #YoSoyAutodefensaYaBasta (I’m a Self-Defense Member Enough Already) is one of open defiance and outright aggression.

“We already have 30 members in the self-defense group. It’s time for the criminals to clear off and steal from somewhere else. Whoever comes in, I’m ready and I don’t give a damn if I take a few bullets; I prefer that than them shooting someone in my family,” a presumed member of a self-defense group in Jardines Alcalde wrote.

“If you catch people red-handed, before you take action, send a message so that the others arrive in support to give them a good beating,” another presumed member said.

Other posts offer advice about applying for a firearm permit as well as how to use it and where to practice.

Although some social media users who have commented on the posts see the creation of self-defense groups as a radical measure, the majority defend the move as a last resort, citing the lack of protection provided by official security forces.

The president of a residents’ association in Jardines Alcalde told Reforma that the emergence of self-defense groups in the area is worrying, adding that municipal police are monitoring the situation.

Salvador Quiroz Nuño explained that local residents are fed up with crime and pointed out that while the residents’ group doesn’t support the actions of people who take law enforcement into their own hands, it doesn’t tell them not to.

Another self-defense group reportedly formed in the Alcalde Barranquitas neighborhood at the end of last year, where residents armed themselves with Tasers and pepper spray to ward off intruders.

In addition to high robbery rates, violent crime has also plagued Guadalajara and Jalisco in the first two months of 2018.

There were more than 120 homicides in the state in both January and February and 60 in the first week of March.

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Cartel gunmen leave human heads at Mexican TV station

(BREITBART) — Mexico’s Cartel Jalisco New Generation (CJNG) continues spreading bloodshed and death threats after gunmen left two human heads outside of the Televisa TV station in Guadalajara, Jalisco.

A Mexican federal law enforcement source confirmed to Breitbart Texas that the gunmen left ice chests with human remains in various parts of Jalisco.

While the case left in front of the TV station did not contain any cartel threats against reporters, Mexican authorities suspect the group is looking to get attention for recent violent acts after they threatened a local police chief close to the governor and a local judge. The chest left at the TV station contained two human heads.

“Jesus Humberto Boruel Neri, number 1202, here I leave you these heads, let’s see if you go public, not like on Sunday 19-11-17 when we threw grenades and you hid it,” one of the recovered messages said. “You know that deals have to be kept or do you want us to remind you why you are there and who put you there.”

Law enforcement sources revealed to Breitbart Texas that Boruel is one of the top leaders of the state police, and at one time, was the bodyguard of current Governor Aristoteles Sandoval. During his time as a bodyguard, Boruel was arrested for his alleged role in the murder of a man in Tlaquepaque, but was later released for a lack of evidence. In another part of the city, authorities found another ice chest with a message for a local judge: “[expletive] Judge Molina, you are next.”

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