The Mexican authorities have detained seven bodyguards who accompanied the mayor of Uruapan, Carlos Manzo, the night of his murder on November 1, according to the Michoacán Prosecutor’s Office. The agency was investigating the security personnel who had accompanied the municipal president to the Day of the Dead celebrations for having shot Víctor Manuel Ubaldo, the teenager who pulled the trigger, when he was already immobilized. The Secretary of Security, Omar García Harfuch, had already reported that those investigated were municipal police officers who acted as bodyguards for Manzo that night.
The Prosecutor’s Office has not yet detailed who the detainees are. However, they have indicated in a statement that an arrest warrant has been served against seven public servants from the municipality of Uruapan. The arrest warrants were issued against the seven for “homicide qualified by omission in the capacity of guarantor,” according to sources close to the investigation, which EL PAÍS has consulted. The escorts will be transferred to the Lic. David Franco Rodríguez Penitentiary Center, in Morelia.
Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla, governor of the State of Michoacán, had also confirmed the investigation into the mayor’s bodyguards for opening fire on the shooter when he no longer posed a threat. “They arrest the murderer and moments later there is a struggle and there is a single shot that kills the murderer,” he told the media at a press conference. “The lines of investigation are open in all senses,” he added.
One of the bodyguards who testified after the murder confessed that he had shot Víctor Ubaldo. The teenager, clad in a white sweatshirt, managed to make his way through the crowd that had attended the Candle Festival in the central square of Uruapan. With a nine millimeter pistol, he shot the mayor several times. That night, Manzo was protected by a group of municipal police officers who were his first security circle. One of them shot the teenager dead when he was already immobilized and neutralized. “They are not detained, but they are located and they are going to testify whenever they are called,” said Harfuch on November 11 at a press conference.
The murder of Ubaldo in the midst of the confusion over the attack significantly delayed the investigations, since the shooter could not be identified for several days. The authorities did not know his age or name, and could not link him to the other perpetrators of the crime. The Prosecutor’s Office had to release photos of his tattoos in order to trace his identity. Finally, it was established that the young man was 17 years old and was from the neighboring municipality of Paracho. His relatives recognized the body and stated that Ubaldo had not returned home since a week before the murder. After finding the name of the shooter, the investigations managed to find the two companions who accompanied him that night, Fernando Josué ‘N’ and Ramiro ‘N’. Although both managed to escape and had orders to hide, they were found dead on a road days later. Harfuch pointed out that the murder of the two collaborators indicates that the criminal group to which they belong silenced them so that the investigators could not continue advancing and end up linking them to the intellectual authors.
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