People wearing bandanas and carrying small arms man a checkpoint Friday in Teconoapa, in the Mexican state of Guerrero. Several hundred civilians have taken up arms in two towns in the southwestern Mexico state and are arresting people suspected of crimes and imposing a curfew. Leaders said they were acting against crime and insecurity. Guerrero Gov. Angel Aguirre Rivero responded Friday by announcing that security in the region would be bolstered by sending in Mexican soldiers and marines and federal and state police officers.MEXICO CITY – Mexican farmers who took up arms against drug-gang violence and other crime in the mountains of southern Mexico have turned over to authorities 11 of 53 people that the vigilantes have put in improvised jails over the last month as suspected criminals.
Bruno Placido, leader of the self-styled “self-defense” movement, described the 11 as the detainees accused by local residents of the most serious crimes, such as murder, kidnapping and extortion. He said they were turned over to state and federal officials.
The authorities will presumably weigh bringing charges against the detainees, but given that the suspects were taken and held with no legal authority, in some cases for weeks, any prosecution might prove difficult.
The government of the Pacific coast state of Guerrero, where the vigilante movement sprang up after a series of kidnappings in early January, said that Placido’s group had agreed to turn over “the first 20” detainees, implying that more would eventually follow.
But Placido said an assembly of residents in the township of Ayutla would determine the next step.