MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – A navy convoy within the Mexican state of Michoacan did not confront the members of a drug cartel who chased them out of city in broad daylight “to avoid deaths,” the nation’s president stated Thursday.
“Some used (the incident) to say what sort of nation we stay in (…) that there was no authority, how may the Army have been humiliated this manner,” stated President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in a daily morning information convention.
Widespread violence has wracked Mexico underneath Lopez Obrador, who took workplace in late 2018 pledging to pacify the nation with a much less confrontational method to coping with organized crime.
“We have to acknowledge the Army’s accountable perspective. Before it was totally different,” the president stated, including the occasion, which happened within the Nueva Italia neighborhood, an space recognized for its heavy cartel presence, was a “persecution.”
In now-viral movies, three automobiles carrying soldiers are seen fleeing at excessive pace down a highway, whereas the pursuers in off-road vans with gunmen on board could be heard yelling “shoot them!”
“We handle members of the Armed Forces; we additionally handle the gang members, they’re human beings,” stated Lopez Obrador.
The president stated the incident happened Wednesday and that following the chase, the navy returned with reinforcements and located a number of drug labs.
Lopez Obrador inherited a nation already reeling from a excessive homicide price. Since he took workplace, common annual murder totals are on observe to be the very best underneath any Mexican administration since trendy information started.
His safety coverage, which he termed “hugs not bullets,” has confronted criticism for being comfortable on crime.
(Reporting by Raul Cortes; Writing by Kylie Madry; Editing by Anthony Esposito and Andrea Ricci)
