MEXICO CITY—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 celebrating the Day of the Dead in the city’s main
MEXICO CITY—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 celebrating 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.
Manzo’s killing has prompted calls for protests in Mexico City and Michoacán. In Washington, U.S., Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau lamented Manzo’s death on X, and wrote that the U.S. stood ready to deepen security cooperation with Mexico to wipe out organized crime on both sides of the border. “May his memory inspire prompt and effective action,” Landau wrote.
Sheinbaum condemned Manzo’s killing on Sunday. “Since the beginning of this administration, we have strengthened security efforts,” she wrote on X, adding that the mayor had been in touch with Mexican military officials and had received federal protection.
Before his killing, Manzo said that Sheinbaum should send Mexican security forces to “clean the mountains of the people who are killing and extorting avocado growers, and killing children.” He said his municipal government was outgunned by criminals who used heavy weapons to commit violent crimes.
“I go out in front heading the operations that have to be done” he told a television reporter earlier this year. “I could be at home, scared and hiding under the bed but I go out in front and have been in shootouts where we fight the delinquents.”
He said his example inspired the municipal police. “You have to preach by example,” he said.
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 major security failure by the federal government. “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?” said Alberto Islas, head of Global Leading Solutions, a Mexico City consulting firm.
In 2005, a group of armed men burst into a bar in Uruapan and threw five human heads on the floor. The incident pushed then-President Felipe Calderón to deploy army units to Michoacán to face off against the then top local cartel, the Familia Michoacana, in what proved to be the opening skirmish in Mexico’s continuing drug war.
Michoacán is now at the center of some of the most violent fighting in Mexico between the Jalisco cartel, the country’s most powerful organized-crime group, and the Cárteles Unidos, a coalition of local gangs. In their fight for turf, both groups have received military training from former Colombian soldiers, use drones and plant mines.
A recent study by Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office said that the state ranked third nationwide in terms of seizures of clandestine synthetic-drug labs.
In late August, Manzo went on social media to warn Uruapan residents that the municipal police had captured the local head of the Jalisco cartel, and that as a result, cartel gunmen had mobilized to enter the city. He asked residents to stay home and asked the army and other Mexican security forces for help in dealing with the cartel threat.
“Please be careful, and don’t leave the house until the code red is lifted,” he said.
Write to José de Córdoba at jose.decordoba@wsj.com
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