The Michoacán massacre reflects the weakness of the police and prosecutors in Mexico

Screenshot of the video that captures the alleged execution of El Pelón and his group.RR.

H.H.

Every atrocity by definition reveals structural flaws in the environment.

In the case of Mexico, the accumulation of massacres, the constant discovery of clandestine graves, or the unpunished murder of politicians and journalists indicates that the problem is actually the entire structure, unable to contain the bleeding, much less correct it.

The massacre of San José de Gracia, in Michoacán, last weekend summarizes 16 years of violence in the country.

Criminals who kill in broad daylight, taking their time to clean up the scene, stealing the bodies… All in front of the nothingness of the government and its representatives on the ground, police and prosecutors, who didn't show up for several hours.

Mexico counts hundreds of massacres every year, understanding as such the murder of three or more people at the same time, a common definition in the specialized literature.

According to the Common Cause organization, which has been keeping records for years, the country suffered 529 massacres in 2021 alone, the year of the pandemic.

Almost one and a half a day.

In 2020 there were more than 600. There are massacres and massacres and some occasionally activate an extra point of discomfort in society.

Or at least that is how successive governments interpret it, which feel the need to explain in detail the actions of criminals, as now in the case of San José.

Experts consulted by EL PAÍS point to impunity and the weakness of local security corporations as basic ingredients of the horror.

The current administration, headed by Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has entrusted its security strategy to the deployment of the National Guard.

In complex territories like Michoacán, their presence has not been enough.

"Michoacán is a mirror of Mexico: we observe there concentrated dynamics of violence, worrying criminal practices and government responses that do not seem to take the measure of urgency," says Romain Le Cour, coordinator of the security program of the organization México Evalúa.

"This past week's massacre reveals, I think, the greatest urgency we face: without justice, there will be no public security in Mexico," he adds.

On Tuesday, the undersecretary of security, Ricardo Mejía, gave details of the San José case.

He said that the old rivalry between two local criminals, El Viejón and El Pelón, had caused the bloodbath.

Both had killed the other's brother and had sworn eternal hatred.

El Viejón is the "chief of the plaza" in the region of the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel (CJNG), the dominant brand in the underworld in Mexico.

El Pelón had been his boss and recruiter.

The first forbade the second to set foot in the town again, advice he followed until the day of the massacre: his mother had died and El Pelón attended the funeral, an unforgivable affront.

Unlike other cases, this one was revealed by the videos of several neighbors, who captured the moments before the massacre, the shots, and the subsequent clean-up operation.

In one you can even see several corpses stacked in a truck while gunmen walk around.

The apparent calm with which the murderers acted points precisely to the State.

El Pelón went to town with his entourage of assassins.

Knowing, El Viejón arrived with another 40, carrying long weapons.

According to the federal government, at least one of them was carrying a 50-caliber Barrett rifle, capable of piercing armored cars.

Impunity and few police

Determined to reconstruct the facts in detail, the Executive ignored a fundamental issue, the movement of dozens of gunmen armed to the teeth, without anyone intervening.

Undersecretary Mejía pointed to local authorities.

"There was no alert from the municipal presidency or the public municipal force, which should have acted as first responders, to secure the scene and alert the authorities," he said.

The foregoing does not explain, however, the previous moments, the parade of assassins, the siege they imposed on the town.

For Irene Tello, head of the organization Impunidad Cero, which produces annual reports on the performance of prosecutors in the country, this macabre parade responds to a sense of impunity on the part of the murderers.

“In a crime with such an impact as intentional homicide, the levels of impunity are very high.

On a national scale there is an impunity of 89.4%.

In other words, only 10 or 11 cases out of 100 ″ are solved, she explains.

For the specific case of Michoacán, with cyclical outbreaks of violence and a number of different criminal actors, dependent on various legal and illegal economic activities, the data is even worse.

“What we see in Michoacán is that there is no way to get convictions,” adds Tello.

“From 2019 to 2020, the number of murder victims rose so much that impunity also rose to 98%.

From 89.6% to 98%”, he argues.

Mejía's accusation to the local authorities was surprising because it pointed to a layer of civil servants usually overwhelmed by the circumstances.

Security analyst Bernardo León justifies the absence of local authorities.

“Sending the municipal police there was sending them to the slaughterhouse.

Six policemen in two patrol cars.

What could they do?” he questions.

“The question is, where was the National Guard or the State Police?

They were not there.

And so it happens in San Jose and in many municipalities in Mexico.

All of these things show that [the government] does not understand the role of local forces,” he adds.

Like Tello, León, who led the police in Morelia, the capital of Michoacán, thinks that impunity plays a key role.

And he points to a possible solution.

“The security and justice apparatus with which they want to subdue crime in Michoacán is very small.

The Mexican state prohibits local police from investigating crimes.

It prevents local prosecutors from prosecuting organized crime, a matter that can only be investigated by the federal prosecutor's office, ”he says.

“Thus, we see weak state governments and prosecutors without legal powers to investigate thoroughly.

In general, in Michoacán and especially in these areas, the criminals are calm ”, he ditches.

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