A Mexican singer-turned-congressman has vowed to arm and mobilize residents unless the state and federal government commit to protecting them from warring gangs and cartels that continue to terrorize Palmas Altas.
State Representative Marcos Flores issued the controversial promise during a town hall meeting Sunday as he addressed the concerns of residents in the town, which is located in Jerez in the central state of Zacatecas.
‘If the federal government ignores us, I myself am going to summon the people so that they take up arms,’ said Flores, a member of the ruling National Regeneration Movement.
‘I wear the shirt with you as far as it goes and assure you that you are not alone,” he added.
Flores’ stance contradicted President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s tactic of combatting criminal organizations by not using more ‘violence’ to eradicate the problem.
Mexican Congressman Marcos Flores promised to support arming residents in Zacatecas, Mexico, to protect them from the constant menacing of gangs and cartels. Flores, a singer-turned-Representative for the north-central state of Zacatecas, made his vow public during a town hall meeting Sunday as residents complained of being driven out of their homes by criminals
Residents in the Zacatecas city of Jerez are led by military convoy to retrieve their belongings from the homes they have been displaced from by warring Mexican gangs and cartels
Most, if not all, of the 276 residents in the small town of Palmas Alta began abandoning their homes in February and March 2021 after members of a criminal organization showed up unannounced and gave them several hours to leave unless they wanted to be killed.
According to local digital news outlet NTR Zacatecas, on the morning of February 3, 2022, the criminal group went to the homes and gave residents two options: ‘Either leave before 1 p.m., or consider yourself dead.’
The threats were not only limited to Palmas Altas, a tiny town surrounded by seven acres of farm land and cattle. Within days a criminal faction also drove out residents from El Colorado, a neighborhood in the municipality of Fresnillo that sits outside the Jerez town of Sarabia, one of 13 besieged by gangsters.
As many as 2,500 people have fled their residences throughout the cities of Fresnillo, Valparaíso and Jerez.
Last Thursday, the National Guard and Zacatecas state police accompanied a caravan of 40 vehicles of families taking advantage of a small window to remove the rest of their belongings from their Jerez homes, whose locks and doors had been destroyed.
An 80-year-old man, who spoke on the condition on anonymity, slammed the lack of protection provided by authorities in Zacatecas, accusing them of allowing criminals to assume control ‘of everything we have fought for for a lifetime.’
He never thought the home and town where he had lived since he was a 15-year-old boy would fall under the rule of powerful criminal organizations.
‘We don’t really have a government. It’s sh*t and yes, let them know that. I say it,’ he said. ‘They don’t work, if they worked, we wouldn’t have to be living this, running away from houses to leave them to criminals.’
Forensic experts remove 10 corpses left in the street in Fresnillo, a city in the north-central Mexico state of Zacatecas, on February 5. At least 195 murders have been registered between January 1, 2022 and February 15, 2022 in Zacatecas
Alexia Monserrat Abrego Esqueda (left) and Valeria Landeros (right) were two of the five current and former university students who were found dead between February 13 and 18 in Zacatecas, Mexico, after they were kidnapped while exiting a nightclub on Februrary 1
The bodies of Irving Castor Rojas (left) and Natalio Torres Balderas (right) were found inside a pickup truck on February 13, a day after the two university students along with three other friends were kidnapped and killed in Zacatecas, Mexico. The north-central state has reported 195 homicides between January 1, 2022 and February 15, 2022
Luis Ángel Manzanares was among the five current and former university students who were adducted after they left a nightclub in Zacatecas, Mexico, on February 12 and found dead the following day inside a pickup truck
The state ranked fifth in the nation with 1,652 homicides reported 2021. At least 1,114 were attributed to criminal organizations, including the Sinaloa Cartel and Jalisco New Generation Cartel.
At least 195 murders have been registered between January 1, 2022 and February 15, 2022 in Zacatecas.
The wave of violence reached a boiling point when four university students and a recent graduate, who had gone into teaching, were kidnapped from a Zacatecas city night club February 12.
The bodies of Irving Castor Rojas 21; Natalio Torres Balderas, 21; Luis Ángel Manzanares, 25; and teacher Alexia Monserrat Abrego Esqueda, 25, were found the following day inside a pickup truck.
Valeria Landeros’ whereabouts were unknown before authorities found her body last Friday.
Mexican Congressman Marcos Flores has publicly supported providing firearms to residents in the north-central state of Zacatecas
Benjamín López Palacios mayor of Xoxocotla was assassinated by three men at his home on January 11. A criminal organization came forward and took responsibility for the murder
Authorities in Fresnillo awoke on February 5 to find bodies wrapped in blankets and left strewn in the streets, and six others found ‘suspended’ in a nearby warehouse in Panfilo Natera.
Mayor Benjamín López Palacios was gunned down at his home in the city of Xoxocotla on January 11.
López Palacios, who was sworn in on January 1 as mayor of the indigenous city of Xoxocotla, was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics.
Just five days before his murder, authorities discovered a truck with 10 dead bodies abandoned near government offices in Zacatecas city, the state capital.
