Six police officers were arraigned and seven more were arrested on Thursday as prosecutors continue investigating disappearances and murders attributed to members of the Taxco, Guerrero, police force.
The arrests began last week, as nearly 60 local police agents were rounded up when state and federal authorities raided the Taxco municipal command and control center. Now, at least 17 more police agents have been detained and charged, a municipal trustee has been identified as a person of interest and the mayor has filed an injunction to prevent his own arrest.
The Aug. 28 raid was prompted by accusations that local police officers had detained and disappeared 10 youths the previous weekend, but since last year residents had complained about a rise in kidnappings and other criminal activities.
The six suspects arraigned on Thursday were among the 10 police officers arrested during last week’s raid. According to Milenio, the suspects were arraigned for the forced disappearance of an unidentified woman. They — along with the four other officers in custody — also face a variety of other charges, including kidnapping and murder.
Cristofer Guillermo Rodríguez, the assistant director of the Taxco police force, is among those awaiting arraignment on the murder charges. The victim, journalist Enrique Hernández, went missing in mid-June after local transit cops detained him and took him to police headquarters where he was allegedly tortured and killed.
After prosecutors found incriminating photos on the phone of one of the accused, the suspects confessed to the murder and told the authorities where the body could be located. One of the photos allegedly showed one of the suspects digging a grave in the exact spot where Hernández’s body was recovered on Sept. 4.
Hernández was buried on Thursday. After a funeral Mass, mourners carried his casket to the cemetery as shouts of ”Justice!” rang out.
Earlier Thursday, state and federal authorities carried out a series of raids and arrested seven more local police officers, including one agent who allegedly has ties with the La Familia Michoacana, an organized crime syndicate. That agent was reportedly in charge of the security cameras at Taxco’s command and control center, according to the newspaper El Sur Acapulco.
El Sur Acapulco also reported that Taxco Mayor Mario Figueroa Mundo traveled to the state capital of Chilpancingo on Wednesday to file an injunction against being arrested. Violence has been on the uptick in Taxco since Figueroa took office in 2021 with the notorious kidnap and murder of a 9-year-old girl making headlines in April of this year.
The hearing for Figueroa’s injunction request is set for Oct. 4.
There are also reports that Dora María Guadarrama, a municipal trustee and a member of Figueroa’s inner circle, was summoned to Chilpancingo for questioning. However, state prosecutors declined to confirm the reports.
Last year, a number of local businesses being extorted by criminal organizations were forced to shut down and earlier this year, public transport shut down for several days in response to violence against transport operators. In late December 2023, 12 municipal sanitation workers were kidnapped. Four were released a week later, but the fate of the other eight victims remains unknown.
On Dec. 25, 2023, the bodies of two school teachers were found in the trunk of a Volkswagen and in November three local journalists were kidnapped only to be released a few days later.
With reports from Milenio, El Sur Acapulco, Proceso and N+ Media
A scary place to live. The residents must have been terrified of the police. Why did it take so long to have the federal government intervene?