Guanajuato: The Removal Of Carlos Zamarripa Aguirre Viewed As Smear Campaign

 "Sol Prendido" for Borderland Beat

Guanajuato lived in the last hours one of the most violent days with four massacres in Moroleón, Irapuato, Apaseo el Grande and León. 

In the last 96 hours the state went through the effects of the violence that claimed the lives of at least 48 people, including a minor, while the questioned prosecutor Carlos Zamarripa Aguirre comes out in exclusive interviews with some media to defend himself from criticism, of what he considers a campaign against him after months of evading the press.

The prosecutor of Guanajuato reappeared in an interview agreed with Milenio León to respond to the accusations made by the President of the Republic, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, due to the lack of results of the Prosecutor's Office and the growing violence during the time he has been at the head of the prosecution of justice in Guanajuato.

For Zamarripa Aguirre, those who criticize the results of the Attorney General's Office (FGE) dedicate "overtime" in a smear campaign against them.

Once the permanent public defense maintained by the governor, Diego Sinhue Rodríguez Vallejo, is exhausted when the security results that the state attorney general has given are questioned, Zamarripa made public statements to justify the growing violence and respond to the accusations of Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

On Friday he replied that to show the results of the Prosecutor's Office of Guanajuato were the press releases that are sent daily to the media, he also said he was offended by the dissemination of the investigation opened by the Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF). But the campaign to defend himself did not stop because after months of not granting interviews he agreed to go to the program Cambios, hosted by Miguel Ángel Puertolas, editorial director of Milenio León.

In the one-hour interview, Carlos Zamarripa said that he suffers from a smear campaign, regarding the dissemination that has been given of the investigation initiated by the FIU. "I don't know who has an interest in us stopping fighting crime, it seems to me that it would only be the criminals, they would be the only ones who have an interest in it. I am very sorry that this has been done," the prosecutor said in the televised interview on Sunday night.

Former governor Miguel Márquez Márquez also left to defend Zamarripa, who kept him as prosecutor during his six-year term, considering it "unfair" that the prosecutor is intended to be held responsible for the violence in Guanajuato, as documented by the portal Ágora in a newspaper release. During the Marquez government, intentional homicides, extortion and other crimes skyrocketed that today have the entity submerged in violence

From the leadership of the PRI in the state - a political party that since 2018 fell into electoral preferences - the removal of Carlos Zamarripa, as AMLO proposes, is not the solution to the problems of insecurity and violence; even, the general secretary of the party and local elected deputy, Alejandro Arias Ávila, declared that the president of the Republic only seeks to "disqualify" the prosecutor of Guanajuato for a political issue.

Four massacres in three days

The day of massacres in Guanajuato began on Friday night with the attack inside the 'La 16' brewery in the center of Moroleón. Armed men broke into the shop located on September 16th Street, corner with Francisco Pérez Baeza, shooting directly at customers.

The report for the firearm detonations was given shortly after 22:00 hours, when the municipal elements arrived they warned that 10 people were injured on the floor, they asked for the support of the Red Cross and Civil Protection to give first aid, but four men no longer had vital signs. Three more men and three women received medical attention in hospitals in the region.

During Friday in the state, at least 14 intentional homicides were recorded, including the four men of Moroleón and a minor of approximately seven years old in Celaya.

According to media reports, shortly before midnight, subjects entered a house in the Laguna Real neighborhood, in the municipality of Celaya, shot the grandmother and granddaughter, but the girl did not survive the attack.

The reports began from the early hours of Friday in Salamanca when the body of a man with traces of violence, the face with blood and several shots produced by firearm on the road that leads from Valtierrilla to Sotelo were located.

At 8:00 am in Silao, a municipal policeman was murdered while he was leaving on duty. The element was still wearing part of his uniform, when armed men shot him in the vicinity of the Silao River, his body was inside the red vehicle in which he was traveling.

In Celaya, in addition to the attack on the grandmother and granddaughter, three other homicides were recorded on Friday: at 9:30 am the body of a man with traces of violence and several gunshot wounds inside a vehicle is found on a dirt road next to the Salamanca-Celaya highway.

In the afternoon a young man on a bicycle was shot in the First Fraction of Crespo, in front of the community temple. The body of a man was also located on the road that connects the communities of La Concepción and San José de Mendoza.

At 10:30 am the emergency system in Apaseo el Grande received the report of residents of the El Castillo community, after finding the body of a man whose face was shattered with gunshot wounds. León added two victims during Friday. 

The first was the result of the attack on a barbershop located in the Las Trojes neighborhood, where a man was also injured. The second victim was another man found in the Piletas neighborhood with knife wounds.

Minutes after the massacre in Moroleón, in San Francisco del Rincón there was another attack, now in a taqueria in the Santa Rita neighborhood, one of the employees, a 19-year-old boy lost his life, and another was injured.

Saturday was marked by massacres: two in less than an hour in different municipalities. At around 22:00 hours there was an attack in the Santa María neighborhood, in the municipality of Irapuato, when men aboard a vehicle unloaded their weapons against a group of people who lived outside a house on Santa Carolina Street leaving eight fatalities, seven men and a woman. 

The only result released by the municipal authorities of the operation that was mounted was the confiscation of a red Nissan vehicle in which the alleged aggressors were apparently traveling.

Saturday's second multihomicide was recorded in Apaseo el Grande: around 11:00 p.m. the attack was reported in a junkyard in the Tenango el Nuevo community. Upon arrival, the security elements found the bodies of two men inside a vehicle and two others at the entrance to the establishment.

Saturday's attacks left 18 victims: a young man identified as Alex, also from Apaseo el Grande, was deprived of his liberty during the early hours of the day. The man was outside his home in the Obrajuelo community when subjects took him by force, only hours later his body was located on the road that leads from the El Castillo community to Calera de Amexhe.

On Saturday morning, the bodies of two women between the ages of 20 and 25 were located on a vacant lot in Nuevo Valle and Brisas del Pedregal in León. 20 minutes later, the discovery of the body of a man was reported in the Soledad de la Joya neighborhood of the same municipality.

In Celaya, the body of a young man with traces of violence was located next to the irrigation channel of the Campo Azul neighborhood and 30 minutes later another young man was killed inside his home in the Los Lagos neighborhood.

Sunday's violent day began with the report, in the municipality of Guanajuato, of a taxi driver killed inside his vehicle in the Ponciano Aguilar tunnel, on his way to the official high school of the University of Guanajuato. The 39-year-old man was reportedly killed by a passenger with a firearm.

In Silao, the discovery of the body of a 30-year-old girl, identified as Daniela, in the community of Pabileros, was reportedly killed. The municipal police had the report of his disappearance and that of his two children.

A man of approximately 30 years old was found dead on the edge of a road in Comonfort, on the borders of Celaya. Also in that municipality, at least two other men were registered murdered, one on Ejido de Santa Teresa Street and another in the Villa de los Arcos neighborhood.

Two young people between 22 and 24 years old were killed by gunfire in the Anenecuilco neighborhood, in Purísima del Rincón, while in Apaseo el Alto three women traveling in a vehicle down Insurgentes Street in San Juan del Llanito were the target of an attack that ended the life of one of them, 19 years old.

In Jaral del Progreso, a 21-year-old man arrived badly injured at the hospital and died while receiving medical attention, after a firearm attack in the Emiliano Zapata neighborhood. In San Miguel de Allende, bone remains were located in the hilly area known as the Banquito.

The beginning of the week was marked by the massacre, on the soccer fields of the Bajío community of Bolas Blancas, on the borders of León with Silao. Minutes after 7:00 p.m. armed individuals broke into the game, shot and generated panic among the people attending, the toll was three men dead and one more injured.

In Irapuato, a man who arrived at the hospital for medical attention after being shot at in the Ignacio Allende neighborhood, died. In Apaseo el Grande there was an attack on a house in the community of San José Agua Azul, the building was riddled with gunfire with at least 30 shots, but without fatalities, although hours later a young man of approximately 20 years old was killed while walking down Vicente Guerrero Street in the same community.

A 45-year-old woman was killed on the Celaya-Comonfort highway while resisting an assault. The criminals allegedly tried to steal the vehicle in which he was traveling with four other people, two minors, but when accelerating to try to escape the subjects opened fire and ended the driver's life, another woman seated in the front was injured.

The removal of Zamarripa would not solve the violence: PRI

After Andrés Manuel López Obrador's insistence that there be a change in the Attorney General's Office and the urgent need to remove Carlos Zamarripa, PRI leaders in Guanajuato came out in defense of the prosecutor, first accusing the President of the Republic of having political interests in Zamarripa's departure and then ensuring that a change of headlines of the security area in the state would not put an end to the violence.

The general secretary of the party, Alejandro Arias, pointed out that the weekend massacres take place in Guanajuato because the criminal groups "know that nothing will happen," that they cause terror because "the authority is not able to create a scheme that inhibits this type of situation," but that the issue of the possible removal of the prosecutor in charge of the prosecution of justice in the state only has "a political intention."

"The arguments he supports to discredit the prosecutor of Guanajuato apply to the attorney general of the Republic, but there he does not make any comment," Arias said regarding the comments that AMLO has made against Carlos Zamarripa.

The delegate of the PRI National Executive Committee in Guanajuato, Mauricio Ortiz Proal, also maintained that the departure of the current state prosecutor would not change the panorama of violence that is experienced in the state.

"What I believe is that we have to analyze the whole strategy, objectives and those responsible because dozens or hundreds of officials intervene, it seems to me that reducing the problem to thinking that removing one person and putting another will give different results is to lead to an absurdity the subject, an absurdity of simplicity."

He considered that after the massacres of recent days the strategy should be reviewed in a comprehensive manner, with the three orders of government, but mainly demanding more action from the Federation.

"I wish the whole security problem were solved with an impeachment, it would be quite simple, and it is not so."

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