2023-10-18 04:23:04
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Bruno Plácido, one of the last true leaders of the civil self-defense movement that originated more than a decade ago, was shot to death Tuesday in southern Mexico.
There are still groups in other parts of southern and western Mexico that call themselves “self-defense groups,” but almost all of them are infiltrated or were financed by drug trafficking cartels.
Plácido was shot dead in Chilpancingo, capital of the state of Guerrero, said a state official who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to make public statements. At this time no motive or suspects were released. Chilpancingo has been the scene of turf wars between rival drug trafficking groups.
Plácido rose to prominence in the violent state of Guerrero in 2013, when he organized an improvised army of farmers to capture alleged members of organized crime. His group held 50 suspects for several weeks in makeshift prisons before handing them over to civilian prosecutors.
He organized hundreds of residents armed with hunting rifles, old pistols and shotguns to carry out patrols and checkpoints in the municipality of Ayutla with the aim of defending their communities from crime. His group said authorities had failed to provide peace and security to an impoverished region on the Pacific coast, east of the tourist center of Acapulco.
There was a fear psychosis, Plácido said during an interview with The Associated Press in 2013, in which he spoke of the frequent homicides and extortion carried out by drug trafficking groups once morest farmers and ranchers.
Plácido later extended his group’s reach into the mountainous area of the state, where warring criminal groups such as the Ardillos, the Tlacos, the Rojos and Guerreros Unidos have spread fear for years.
Although Plácido had many enemies, it is unknown who might have killed him.
Just last June, self-defense leader Hipólito Mora died in an ambush in the neighboring state of Michoacán. The murders of Plácido and Mora practically wiped out the leaders of the old guard of the armed self-defense movements.
Mora was the main leader of the movement in Michoacán, where farmers and ranchers united to expel the Knights Templar cartel from the state between 2013 and 2014.
Mora was one of the last to remain in his hometown following the fight, tending his lemon fields. But in recent years he complained that many self-defense groups had been infiltrated by organized crime and the violence was worse than ever.
Plácido, for his part, faced a much more fractured combination of drug cartels in Guerrero, where each of them controlled a part of the mountains.
Despite being the state capital, Chilpancingo is not immune to violence.
In July, hundreds of people organized by the Ardillos cartel took to the city streets in an attempt to force the government to release two leaders of the organization accused of drug and firearm possession.
Protesters virtually blocked all traffic on the highway linking Mexico City and Acapulco for two days and clashed with security forces. They also kidnapped 10 state police and National Guard agents, as well as three state and federal officials, whom they held hostage for a day.
There are still community police forces in Guerrero, but unlike self-defense groups, they do not have weapons or equipment to confront drug trafficking cartels.
Since 1995, around 80 towns in the state have organized to create community police forces, which have legal recognition and in which lightly armed men arrest and prosecute other people, generally for minor crimes such as consumption of alcoholic beverages in public places or disturbance of public order. They have their own prisons, “courts” and sanctions, which may include community service or educational talks.
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