Uruapan Has Been Left an Orphan
On the night of November 1st, Uruapan’s mayor, Carlos Manzo, was gunned down with five bullets.
They took his life in the middle of a Day of the Dead celebration.
It wasn’t the color of his political party that earned him followers. Long before becoming mayor, he had served as a congressman for Morena — yet he ran for mayor as an independent. What inspired people was his courage, his defiance against organized crime.
He said it loud and clear: “For criminals — no hugs, only blows.”
He stood up for the avocado growers, defending them from the cartels that have bled Michoacán dry.
“If order isn’t restored here, in Uruapan,” he warned last September, “soon the whole nation will hear a strong uprising — of voice, of justice, and if necessary, of arms — because people are fed up.”
President Claudia Sheinbaum disagreed. “That’s wrong,” she said during her May 23rd morning press conference. “We have a rule of law. There’s an accusatory criminal system in Mexico, and for anyone who commits a crime, there must be an investigation file, or a flagrant arrest, and evidence to determine guilt or innocence. The alternative is to return to the war on drugs — and that brought, and still brings, a heavy cost to our country.”
Last night, a brave man — respected, admired, and loved by the people of Uruapan — fell to gunfire.
Tomorrow morning, President Sheinbaum will likely say: “An investigation has been opened.”
