Gang violence erupts in Tijuana and other cities
TIJUANA, MEXICO >> Armed gangs hijacked and burned at least a dozen vehicles in Tijuana, Mexico, on Friday evening, blocking major roads, Milenio TV reported, the latest incident in a wave of attacks hitting civilians.
U.S. consulate staff were ordered to shelter in place but no one was reported injured in the Tijuana hijackings that snarled traffic across the city and temporarily blocked access to one of the world's busiest border crossings.
Simultaneous hijackings occurred in four other cities in Baja California state and authorities arrested at least 17 people, Milenio reported. Tijuana is home to the San Ysidro-El Chaparral ports of entry, the busiest U.S. border crossing.
The disruptions in Tijuana follow attacks against businesses and civilians further along the border in Ciudad Juárez and the central state of Guanajuato the past week. The wave of violence now spreading to key manufacturing corridors is a major challenge to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's security strategy.
While so-called “narco blockades” have become common in states like Guerrero and Michoacán, where the Jalisco New Generation Cartel pioneered attacks on civilians over the past few years, this was the first time such tactics had been widely deployed in the major border city of Tijuana, said Vanda Felbab-Brown, an organized crime expert at Brookings Institution.
An escalating battle between Jalisco and the Sinaloa Cartel for control in the region could jeopardize new foreign investment, she said. Tijuana has seen horrific gang violence in the past, but not such disruptions directed at the general population.
“Companies are being affected. Foreign companies are being affected,” FelbabBrown said in a telephone interview. “It's blowing up in terms of people saying `Hey government, you have to protect us.'”
López Obrador's government has come under criticism for shying away from directly challenging criminal gangs, such as its release of drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman's son in 2019 following unrest in Sinaloa after his capture.
The government has deployed thousands of members of the National Guard across the country, giving the public the sense that the streets remain militarized. And although the homicide rate has fallen, it remains near record highs.
Tijuana Mayor Montserrat Caballero spoke directly to the criminal gangs she blamed for the hijackings in a video message where she also said the city wouldn't shut down.
“We ask that you make the people who owe you pay up, not the families and citizens who work,” she said.
Several vehicles burned Friday night blocked roads in two cities in Guanajuato state, Milenio reported, where gangs on Tuesday torched 25 Oxxo convenience stores owned by Fomento Economico Mexicano SAB.