MEXICO CITY— Local police in the cartel-dominated city of Culiacan, Mexico, have been removed off the streets after the army took their weapons, officials reported Monday.
The move occurred only one day after some 1,500 citizens of Culiacan, the capital of the northern state of Sinaloa, marched through the city’s downtown on Sunday to demand peace following weeks of cartel gunfights that murdered dozens of people in and around the city.
Instead of announcing an increased police presence, the state’s governor, Ruben Rocha, declared Monday that the entire 1,000-member municipal police force would not return to duty until they received their firearms back. Soldiers, state police, and the National Guard will take up patrol until then.
Rocha stated that the confiscation of the guns for scrutiny of their permits and serial numbers was not normal, but rather “exceptional,” and that “we hope it will end soon.”
Historically, the Mexican army has seized guns from local police forces it distrusts, either because they fear some local policemen are cooperating with drug cartels or because they are carrying unregistered, private sidearms that would make abuses more difficult to detect.
In 2018, the army took the guns from the municipal police in Cuernavaca, another state capital, to undertake a similar check. It stated at the time that the policy was intended to ensure “trustworthy security forces.”
Since drug lords Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and Joaquín Guzmán López were detained in the US on July 25, hundreds of army troops have been airlifted into Culiacan to quell unrest between Sinaloa cartel factions.
Zambada later claimed that Guzmán López kidnapped him and forced him into the plane, resulting in a violent clash between Zambada’s faction and the “Chapitos” group, led by the sons of imprisoned drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán.
Sunday’s demonstration was the first such march that citizens had dared to organize since factional fighting broke out following the July 25 incidents. Gunfights have erupted in Culiacan’s downtown and wealthy neighborhoods, and parents have been reluctant to send their children to school since early September.
To prevent the near-daily shootings, most Culiacan schools have switched to online classrooms. On Monday, gunmen shot and killed Faustino Hernández, the leader of the local cattle rancher’s union, in broad daylight on a downtown street.
The civic group “Culiacan Valiente,” or Brave Culiacan, gathered locals to dress in white on Sunday and carry banners that read “Take back our streets!”
“We want to return to in-class learning, but only if the safety of the schoolchildren is guaranteed,” the march organizers stated in a statement.
Rocha stated that the conflict is between two cartel factions — the “Chapitos” and the “Mayitos” — and promised to combat them both equally.
“There are two groups that are confronting each other here,” Rocha explained of his situation. “The authorities are here to face them down equally, both of them without exceptions.”
The two parties have turned to leaving peculiar factional markings on the bodies of their rivals: the “Chapitos” leave pizzas (derived from their group’s collective moniker in Spanish, “La ChaPIZA”), and Zambada’s supporters leave their signature cowboy hats on dead victims. The cowboy hats represent the view that Zambada’s side is more traditional than the younger Guzmáns.
However, the situation has spiraled out of control, with cartel gunmen seizing and burning buses and trucks to block highways leading into and out of Culiacan.
Rocha admitted that he was stuck in traffic for hours on Friday due to a cartel blockage after traveling to the adjacent resort city of Mazatlan to meet with outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Rochas stated that he had to drive past the flaming remnants of one vehicle that had been burnt.
On Monday, the governor promised to form five “anti-blockade” squads of state police and military on roadways near Culiacan. However, he acknowledged that the squads would not be able to stop the hijackings, but they would be equipped with tanker trucks to extinguish the flames and tow away the wreckage.
Even the local army commander, Gen. Francisco Leana Ojeda, admitted recently “We want this to end as soon as possible, but it is up to the warring groups to stop fighting.”