Alleged Tamaulipas Female Cop Killer 'El Puma' Beaten Up, Arrested

"Morogris" for Borderland Beat

Alleged Tamaulipas cop killer Cristino Ramírez Hernández (AKA Comandante Puma Sierra Fox and/or Puma de la Sierra) was arrested earlier this week by state police officers. Investigators say he is responsible for murdering a 21-year-old policewoman on 1 May 2021 in San Fernando, Tamaulipas. 

Irving Barrios Mojica, the Attorney General of Tamaulipas, confirmed the arrest on his Twitter account. He also confirmed Ramirez Hernandez was captured after a shootout with state security forces. Citizen journalists showed pictures of Ramirez Hernandez on an ambulance bed and stated that he was severely beaten. Although the pictures show that his face was intact, they claimed that he suffered internal bleeding and was nearly killed.

The policewoman who he killed was named Raquel Giselle Ocaña Segura. The event occurred at around 6:15 p.m. on 1 May 2021, when personnel from the Tamaulipas State Police which Ocaña belonged began chasing a three-vehicle convoy of armed men through the Reynosa–San Fernando highway.

When the vehicle pursuit reached the rural community Alfredo V. Bonfil, in an area known as Periquitos, a shootout broke out between the state police and the armed assailants. Ocaña was killed and another officer was wounded.

The gunmen left two trucks at the scene, a Tahoe and a Tacoma, and fled in a getaway vehicle. A person who had been kidnapped by the gunmen was abandoned at the scene and attended by the police officers. This person stated that he was involved in human trafficking and that he paid a free to criminal groups in the area to smuggle people across the US–Mexico border. For more details on this incident and more about the Zetas Vieja Escuela (ZVE) boss who was alleged to be behind it, please see this previous story.

“Unfortunately, with incidents like these, it is proven that smuggling migrants to the northern border continues to be one of the main activities of criminal groups [in Tamaulipas]”, an investigator said.

A newspaper stated that the gunmen were members of the Gulf Cartel, although this claim was not denied or confirmed by authorities.

Ocaña's body was sent back to her family and buried in Altamira, Tamaulipas, where she was from, after a large ceremony.

Sources about the arrest: El Norte; Valor Tamaulipeco

Sources about Ocaña's murder: El Financiero; Noticias de Tampico; Excelsior; La Sabia Calle

Acknowledgments: Special thanks to "HEARST" for providing the images for this report