SLRC mayor replaces police chief
Action comes as city’s homicide rate rises
SAN LUIS RIO COLORADO, Son. – Just days before marking one year as this city’s police chief, Luis Edgar Labra Zarate has been removed from the post amid a wave of homicides in the city.
Mayor Santos Gonzalez Yescas announced he was replacing Labra Zarate with Luis Manuel Lugo Duron, a longtime Sonora police official with roots in San Luis Rio Colorado.
“It was necessary to make a change, to make a new turn in public safety, for the benefit of the people of San Luis, as well as to bring about new strategies and complete harmony to the department,” the mayor said in a news conference posted to Facebook.
Gonzalez named Labra Zarate as his police chief upon taking office as mayor last September. Over the past year, homicides numbers have surged in a trend that predates the mayor
According to Sonora Public Safety Secretariat – the state police agency – 43 homicides occurred in San Luis Rio Colorado from Jan. 1 through the end of July, although other sources say the number is higher. Tribuna de San Luis, the city’s daily newspaper, reported last week that 76 murders had occurred in the city and its surrounding areas in the previous eight months.
In a recent visit to San Luis Rio Colorado, the head of the state police agency attributed most of the killings to fighting among drug trafficking groups.
In his news conference, Gonzalez acknowledged the rising murder rate but said municipal police remain committed to battling a crime problem that, he noted, is not unique in Sonora to San Luis Rio Colorado.
“What has happened is worrisome, but it has not overwhelmed us. Good people of San Luis continue to be safe,” he said.
“We are going to work to improve (the situation),” he added. “I also want this to change. We are going for a new strategy.”
Gonzalez took the occasion during the news conference to introduce Lugo Duron, previously a commander in San Luis for state police and also former municipal police chief in Puerto Penasco, Son., and Guaymas, Son.
Duron declined to discuss steps he will take to combat crime in the border city across from San Luis, Ariz., but said, “I thank the mayor for his trust in me and would ask the same of residents.”
Gonzalez’s appointment of Lugo Duron was expected to be ratified by the city’s council by next week.
Of Labra Zarate, Gonzalez said, “he’s leaving through the front door with the praise of the department.”
He added, “I am not saying things were going bad; I just believe that the time has come to take another course.”