When he saw President López Obrador greet the mother of notorious drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán in Sinaloa on Sunday, Bryan LeBaron felt betrayed.

He said that after an organized crime-related attack left three women and six children of the LeBaron family dead in November, the president did not want to meet him and his family — the victims of organized crime — but had time for the families of its perpetrators.

“The president has misidentified his priorities. When we marched he didn’t want to receive us … but yesterday he sent a very hurtful message to all of Mexico when he stopped to greet [Guzmán’s] mother and speak with the lawyer for one of the most dangerous drug traffickers in the world,” said LeBaron.

“This seems like a betrayal to me. Not for the fact of having greeted a mother, but because he [is closer to] the relatives of organized crime than the relatives of those who have been victims of the violence of that organized crime.”

President López Obrador met El Chapo’s mother, María Consuelo Loera Pérez, while in Badiraguato, Sinaloa, where he was overseeing the construction of a highway connecting the town to the municipality of Guadalupe y Calvo, Chihuahua.

In a video that enraged political opponents in addition to disappointing the LeBarón family, the president walks toward Loera, who is in the passenger seat of an SUV, telling her, “Don’t get out, I’ll come to greet you.”

They shake hands and AMLO, as he is commonly known, confirms that he received a letter she recently sent him.

Political rivals were critical on social media, even accusing him of colluding with organized crime.

Said LeBaron, “It’s terrible because while we march, the criminals keep killing people. While [AMLO] ignores the victims, it appears as though he puts himself at the service [of organized crime].”

Sources: El Universal (sp), Sin Embargo (sp)