10 days after Mayor Benjamin Lopez Palacios was sworn into office, three gunmen stormed his home to find aid for a fake project and ended up firing shots and killing him. The incident happened this past Tuesday.
The incident has made headlines, because the organization allegedly took responsibility for the murder via a propaganda banner. The murder took place only ten days after Palacios was inaugurated. The Mayor was recently inaugurated on January 1. Along with that, the group says they plan on moving forward with more assassinations.
Media central to the Xoxocotla area reported that three men visited the Mayor’s home to find aid for a fake project and ultimately fired shots at Palacios before running off. As of now, no arrests have been made in the murder. The gang that claimed the life of the Mayor did so by putting up a ‘narco manta’ against a gate near a cemetery in Punt de Ixtla.
It was revealed that Palacios was elected in June 2021 after his brother Juan Lopez Palacios was elected but passed away from a heart attack seven days later.
But the gang that took credit for the killing took aim at a local soccer star turned regional governor, and highlighted his alleged links to other organized criminals.
Without identifying itself, a criminal organization took credit for the murder of López Palacios by hanging a ‘narcomanta’ (propaganda banner) against a gate outside a cemetery in the municipality of Punte de Ixtla and calling out governor Cuauhtémoc Blanco.
On Thursday, Blanco dismissed the sign by saying it made him ‘laugh’ and called it ‘dirty war’ that is part of politics. He called on the Office of the Attorney General to conduct a full investigation into López Palacios’ murder.
The leader of the criminal faction claimed to have ‘warned’ Blanco in the past that they would be targeting mayors in the state.
‘There goes the first one Cuauhtémoc Blanco, don’t send me to talk to fools. Keep playing around and you’re going to run out of mayors, I f******* warned you f*****, here’s the first one,’ the banner read in Spanish. ‘And if you want to know more about who organized the meeting, ask the former treasurer (Alejandro) Villareal, he will be able to give you more exact data, another piece of information, investigate the death of Ray (former Jalisco New Generation cell leader Raymundo Castro), who was interested in him dying in prison(?) Greetings, Cuauhtémoc.’
Flip to the next page to see photos of Mayor Benjamin Lopez Palacios and videos of the assault.