MEXICO CITY (AP) – Mexican security officials claimed on Tuesday that a demonstration that blocked the main highway to the resort of Acapulco and led to the abduction of government officials was organized by a drug gang.
They also said that a National Guard officer had been killed by a car bomb set by a cartel in an earlier attack elsewhere.
The violence suggested that Mexico’s crime problem continues to be dire, despite President Andrés Manuel López Obrador exaggerating how much he has reduced the number of homicides since taking office in December 2018.
Rodríguez acknowledged that a demonstration on Monday by hundreds of people in the southern city of Chilpancingo was organised by the Los Ardillos drug gang.
She said the protest was aimed at forcing the government to release two detained gang leaders who have been charged with drug and weapons possession.
The demonstrators largely blocked all traffic on the highway between Mexico City and Acapulco for two days, battled security forces and commandeered a police armored truck and used it to ram down the gates of the state legislature building.
Rodríguez said the demonstrators had abducted 10 members of the state police and National Guard, as well as three state and federal officials, and were holding them hostage to enforce their demands.
“A lot of these people were forced to demonstrate,” Rodríguez said, vowing not to use force to dissolve the protest. Rodríguez claimed the Ardillos gang even had two spokesmen, one of whom owned a construction company that got public works contracts.
Later, the government of the state of Guerrero, where Chilpancingo is located, said that a deal had been reached with protesters to free the kidnapped officials and officers, and return the stolen police armored truck.
