Monday, September 15, 2025

New governor creates elite SWAT team to fight crime in San Luis Potosí

San Luis Potosí will soon have a new weapon in the fight against crime: an elite SWAT team created by the new governor.

The unit is the first of its kind designed to combat crimes that fall within state jurisdiction, the newspaper Milenio reported. The force will be made up of state police with training in weapons and tactics for combating robbery, assault and other crimes.

It is a model that is already familiar in the United States, where SWAT teams typically respond to acts of terrorism, hostage situations and reports of heavily armed criminals.

Governor Ricardo Gallardo Cardona said that like in the U.S., the San Luis Potosí SWAT team will respond quickly to urgent situations — but is not designed to fight cartels.

“They will be the ones who react immediately. People are tired of robberies, they are tired of assaults, they are tired of extortion … that is where we have to step in,” Gallardo said, adding that the group will work to “repel all the evil that exists in San Luis Potosí.”

The state government said the force will start with 200 members and have 450 by next January.

Homicides in the state have trended upward over the last several years due to confrontations between criminal groups, though the 2020 homicide rate of 28 murders per 100,000 residents remains slightly below the national average. The rate of killings of police officers also increased from four cases in 2019 to 19 in 2020.

With reports from Milenio

Have something to say? Paid Subscribers get all access to make & read comments.
crash in Yucatán

Highway accident west of Mérida kills 16, injures 2

0
A freight truck carrying beer, a passenger transport van and a private vehicle were involved in the crash on the Mérida–Campeche federal highway near the town of Kopomá, Yucatán.
ammuniton evidence

American woman arrested for smuggling ammunition into Mexico 

0
It was the second recent arrest of an American trying to smuggle military equipment across the border, and an early test of a new bilateral agreement to crack down on weapons smuggling.
gulf of mexico protest against Veracruz port construction

Veracruz residents protest port expansion threatening Gulf’s coral reefs

0
The group of protesters objects to the construction of a 3,000-meter breakwater on the La Gallega reef and seeks to increase visibility of the endangered Veracruz Reef System.
BETA Version - Powered by Perplexity