Oaxaca Governor Salomón Jara has announced the suspension of three high-ranking police officials after officers from a special operations unit appeared in a music video with a singer who has released songs dedicated to drug traffickers.
“In relation to the video circulating on social media about the Special Operations Police Unit [UPOE], I’ve ordered an internal investigation,” Jara wrote on the X social media platform on Wednesday.
“Until the situation is completely clarified, I’ve given the instruction for the director of the UPOE, Rodolfo Montero Arista, the director of the State Support Forces, Gilberto Hernández Villarreal, and the State Police Commissioner, Eduardo Gutiérrez Ruiz, to be removed from their positions,” he said.
The music video in question was released by Pablo del Ángel, a singer better known as “El Oaxaco.”
Heavily-armed UPOE officers are essentially the stars of the video, which was made for a corrido, or ballad, dedicated to the special operations unit on the occasion of its 23rd anniversary. Officers appear behind “El Oaxaco” as he sings, and are also shown firing their weapons and carrying out raids.
At the start of the clip, a message appears saying that “all the visual elements used in this video are under the authorization of the UPOE with the aim of extolling the work of our police.”
Y ahora… un corrido para la Policía de Oaxaca 😵💫🎶
El cantante Pablo del Ángel 👼🏽 grabó un corrido dedicado a la Unidad Policial de Operaciones Especial (UPOE) 🚔
En el video de “el Oaxaco” se habrían utilizado recursos públicos 💰🤦🏽pic.twitter.com/Ube66vM9xU— SDP Noticias (@sdpnoticias) April 25, 2024
This video has led to the suspension of three high-ranking police officials in Oaxaca this week.
If that was the intent of the police officials who possibly authorized the appearance of the officers in the video and who have now been suspended, the plan backfired — and badly.
Governor Jara clearly doesn’t approve of any association between the state police and a singer who has previously released a song called “Yo Soy Ovidio” (I am Ovidio), dedicated to Ovidio Guzmán, a son of former drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. Ovidio was captured in Culiacán, Sinaloa, in January 2023 and extradited to the United States last September to face drug trafficking charges.
Pablo del Ángel also has a ballad about notorious drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, who was arrested in northern Mexico in 2022. He boasts in another song – the “Corrido de El Oaxaco” – that he always carries a gun, and has used it to kill.
With reports from Aristegui Noticias and El Financiero
