Mayor’s decapitated head left sitting on top of his car just days after taking office
A mayor has been killed and decapitated just days after taking office in a violence-ridden city in Mexico, officials have said.
A mere six days after taking office as mayor of Chilpancingo in the country’s south, Alejandro Arcos was found dead – with unverified social media images showing what appeared to be his severed head on top of a pick-up truck.
Reacting to his death, Evelyn Salgado, the governor of Guerrero – where Chilpancingo is the capital – said: “His loss mourns the entire Guerrero society and fills us with indignation.”
Guerrero’s state attorney general’s office also said it was investigating his murder – though have not released details of the investigation or any suspects.
Arcos’s social media posts show that he had spent his tragically short stint in office overseeing disaster relief efforts for Hurricane John last month, which caused severe flooding in the region.
On his Facebook account, Arcos had shared photos in the hours before his death of meetings with relief workers and residents.
But his murder comes just three days after the new city government’s secretary, Francisco Tapia, was shot and killed.
“They were young and honest officials who sought progress for their community,” Mexican senator Alejandro Moreno wrote on social media.
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Moreno, who is the head of Mexico’s PRI party, of which Arcos was part, has also called on the federal attorney general’s office to head up the investigation into the two murders with “the situation of ungovernability in Guerrero” in mind.
At the same time, the PRI released a statement on social media which read: “Enough of violence and impunity! The people of Guerrero do not deserve to live in fear.”
The state has become one of Mexico’s deadliest for aspiring and elected public officials, as well as for journalists – with at least six candidates for public office killed in the run-up to Mexico’s June 2 elections alone.
But the country’s new president Claudia Sheinbaum is looking to crack down – and is expected to roll out her strategy for confronting Mexico’s dire security situation today in Chilpancingo.
The officials’ killings – and most other homicides in Mexico – rarely result in arrests and successful prosecutions.
“There’s an issue with impunity in Mexico, and until that goes away, until those institutions are stronger, you’re just not going to be able to guarantee the safety of candidates,” said Mike Ballard, director of intelligence at international security firm Global Guardian.
But Sheinbaum will need to tread lightly as she brings her plan into action, with historic high-profile arrests of bloodthirsty drug lords leading to extreme violence, complicating the Mexican government’s ability to launch operations without provoking a deadly backlash.