National Guard assumes policing duties after candidate’s murder

January 15, 2021

The National Guard on duty in Juventino Rosas.

A day after the assassination of a Guanajuato politician while he was jogging in the city of Juventino Rosas, the National Guard and state police disarmed local police and took over security in the municipality.

A 2021 mayoral hopeful in the municipality of the same name, Juan Antonio Acosta, 55, was killed Tuesday after armed men ambushed and shot him seven times in the back not far from his home.

Governor Diego Sinhue Rodríguez said the Guard and state forces took over security in the municipality on Wednesday, a decision approved by the state Attorney General’s Office, he said.

“We are working with a plan. The state government and the military have initiated Operation Thunder in Juventino Rosas,” Sinhue told reporters Thursday.

Acosta, a National Action Party (PAN) legislator with a diverse career in Guanajuato state politics, was a two-time former mayor in Juventino Rosas, from 2006–2009 and 2012–2015.

He had just registered a few weeks before as a mayoral candidate for 2021.

His killing prompted condolences and condemnation from state officials, including Sinhue, state PAN president Román Cifuentes Negrete, who called him a man committed to Mexico, and federal Interior Minister Olga Sánchez Cordero.