“Char” for Borderland Beat
This article was translated and reposted from INFORMADOR.MX
By: Jaime Barrera
December 20, 2023 – 03:05 am
In the last two months the National Guard (NG) in Jalisco has given a lot to talk about.
Yesterday they were in the news again when they were patrolling the municipality of Zapotlanejo in search of members of organized crime cells, they were attacked in the community of San Jose de las Flores by a commando of hired killers traveling in five pickup trucks with embedded weapons at 15:40 hours.
The elements of the GN, which since October has been led in Jalisco by General Armando Gómez Mendoza, managed to repel the aggression of this heavily armed criminal convoy, who in their flight towards the town of Tocomatlán, as usual, ordered narco-blockades to prevent the arrival of reinforcements, but neither elements of this federal corporation, nor municipal and state police were able to detain those responsible.
Just last Thursday, the GN led another operation in Guadalajara’s El Hormiguero neighborhood, where they killed two and arrested another criminal who shot at them after they were caught with a woman who had been deprived of her freedom. Days before, they patrolled in Poncitlán, and as a result, the Attorney General’s Office seized a large arsenal yesterday. In November, they deployed operations in Ocotlán, where an NG officer lost an arm due to a wound from a large caliber weapon, and dealt a strong blow to the New Generation cartel in Tapalpa, where they arrested “CR”, who is accused of kidnapping Colonel Grimaldo in December of last year.
Thus, with operations in the Metropolitan Zone and in the most conflictive municipalities of the state, the GN has become very uncomfortable for the organized crime cells that felt they owned the state territory to turn it into a battlefield and carry out their vendettas.
In a certain sense, this change of guard of the NG, which is opening new facilities in the vicinity of the former maximum security federal prison in Puente Grande, has also been uncomfortable for the heads of municipal police, and even of the State Police, as they deploy operations on their own without asking for their support, and suggest in security meetings, greater enforcement and police effectiveness in their respective areas.