Police chief shot dead, days after activist, wife and daughter were murdered in Mexico

The head of operations of Mexico City’s police was killed in the capital on Sunday, just three days after an indigenous rights activist and his family were killed in the country, authorities said – the latest in a series of attacks on policeActivists and Politician throughout Mexico.

“A cowardly attack in Coacalco, State of Mexico, left my colleague and friend, Chief Commissioner Milton Morales Figueroa, dead,” local security secretary Pablo Vazquez said on social media, vowing to “identify, arrest and bring to justice those responsible.”

The officer in charge of intelligence operations to combat organized crime was in front of a poultry shop when he was attacked and shot by a man, according to surveillance camera footage.

“Milton was tasked with important investigative tasks to protect the peace and security of the people of Mexico City,” Mayor Marti Batres wrote on social media.

Small drug trafficking and smuggling cells operating in the megacity are linked to some of the country’s powerful drug cartels, such as the powerful Jalisco Cartel – New Generation (CJNG).

The Jalisco cartel is better known for producing millions of doses of the deadly fentanyl and smuggling them into the United States disguised as Xanax, Percocet or oxycodone. Such pills cause about 70,000 deaths from overdose per year in the United States.

Local media reported that Figueroa’s work helped dismantle some gangs.

While in other Mexican states plagued by criminal violence, several police chiefs have been the victims of assaults in recent years, attacks on the authorities have been rare in the capital.

Activist, wife and daughter murdered

A Mexican indigenous rights activist was killed along with his wife and daughter when unknown assailants riddled their car with bullets and set it on fire, prosecutors said Friday.

Lorenzo Santos Torres, 53, and his family were traveling in a pickup truck on a highway in the southern state of Oaxaca on Thursday when they were intercepted and shot.

The attackers then set fire to the vehicle and its passengers, the public prosecutor’s office said.

“We condemn the violent manner in which the crime was committed,” prosecutor Bernardo Rodriguez Alamilla told reporters, suggesting that the attack may have been motivated by “revenge.”

Santos Torres was an active human rights activist in Oaxaca.

According to the local Center for Human Rights and Counseling of Indigenous Peoples (Cedhapi), the activist had been threatened because of his work in defense of the political, social and land rights of indigenous communities.

“Lorenzo Santos Torres spoke out against the injustices of the municipality of Santiago Amoltepec (city),” said Cedhapi, calling for the murderers to be punished.

In Mexico, several human rights activists have been murdered in recent years. The country has long struggled with violence related to drug trafficking and inheritance disputes over agricultural land.

More than 450,000 people have been murdered in the country of 126 million inhabitants since the government of then-President Felipe Calderon launched a military offensive against the drug cartels in 2006.