Anti-Cartel Mayor Assassinated in public

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A Mexican mayor who pleaded with President Claudia Sheinbaum to take a harder line against drug cartels was assassinated in a brazen public shooting Saturday night, the latest sign of the power of organized-crime groups that hold sway over much of the country.

Carlos Manzo, the mayor of Uruapan, the hub of Mexico’s multibillion-dollar avocado industry in violence-torn Michoacán state, was gunned down as he officiated a candle-lighting ceremony observing the Day of the Dead in the city’s main plaza. He was shot seven times by a gunman who was killed by security forces, officials said.

In recent months, Manzo had taken to national media to ask the federal government for more help in fighting gangs that ran extortion rackets across western Mexico for years. He said that criminals who resisted arrest should be killed if they didn’t surrender.

Manzo, who also had served as a federal congressman representing Mexico’s ruling party, ran as an independent to win the Uruapan mayor’s race last year. He took a hands-on approach to law enforcement, wearing his trademark cowboy hat and a bulletproof vest as he accompanied police during patrols and raids, despite constant threats from criminal groups.

For years, Michoacán has been a battleground for successive organized-crime groups that have battled each other to extort the state’s avocado and lime growers. The state has also been seeded with methamphetamine labs, and is home to the Pacific port of Lázaro Cárdenas, an important entry point for precursor chemicals from Asia used to make fentanyl....

On Sunday, Mexican Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch said Manzo had received federal security in December, which had been reinforced in May. The federal government contributed 14 National Guardsmen to his security detail, which also included municipal police trusted by the mayor, he said.

Two suspects linked to the killing have been captured. The gun used in the assassination has been linked to two attacks by criminal gangs, he said.

The killing points to a security failure by the federal government, said Alberto Islas, head of Global Leading Solutions, a Mexico City consulting firm. “Michoacán has been a hot spot for more than 20 years, and we didn’t have the intelligence that a leading official was at risk?” Islas said.

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