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- Autodefensas: Dr. Mireles California hometown speaks about him
- Latest Photos of "El Chapo" Making Social Media Rounds
- Jalisco state mass grave death total rises to 37
Autodefensas: Dr. Mireles California hometown speaks about him Posted: 23 Nov 2013 10:31 PM PST Borderland Beat  This article is from the Modesto Bee. Modesto is the northern California city Dr. Manuel Mireles and his family called home for a decade before returning to Michoacán. This is the first American article I have seen that was a "go to" rather than gathering facts from afar...from the people who know him well. I have included a foto of one of the "homemade" armor trucks autodefenzas use. (below) "In his free time, he and a daughter volunteered as translators for the Modesto branch of the American Red Cross, later translating first-aid booklets and other Red Cross materials for the Michoacán migrants in the region."... TEPALCATEPEC, Mexico – Dr. Jose Manuel Mireles dons a white lab coat and attends to patients at a clinic during the day. But during off hours, he has a second calling: chief of a ragtag band of armed vigilantes who are trying to keep gangsters out of the small city of Tepalcatepec. After living a decade in Modesto, Mireles, 55, returned to this corner of Mexico’s Michoacán state in 2007, bringing his family with him. His return was not easy. Drug-trafficking gangsters marauded across the land, and his hometown had grown unrecognizably violent. “We used to have seven or eight executions every week,” Mireles said, and nearly every business and ranch was paying extortion fees to the dominant drug-trafficking crime gang, known as the Knights Templar. So on Feb. 24, Mireles and a cabal of other disgruntled citizens took up arms, set up sandbag bunkers at the four entrances to the city and hung banners that said the Knights Templar gangsters would face the armed wrath of residents if they entered city limits. “For eight months now, we’ve had no murders, no extortions, no rapes, no turf taxes, nothing,” Mireles said.  Mireles is now famous in these parts, known simply as “the doctor,” instantly recognizable with his shock of wavy graying hair, a bushy mustache, movie-star good looks and deep resonant voice. He’s also a hero to many of the 400 families of Tepalcatepec migrants living in the Modesto area. “He’s got the support of 100 percent of the community here,” said Salvador Andrade Mendoza, the head of the Casa Michoacán Federation in Modesto. Mireles said his self-defense group, part of a network of armed citizen groups that over the past weekend captured the seventh of Michoacán's 113 townships, wasn’t looking for war with the Knights Templar. Rather, the groups just want to keep the gang away. Mireles said Article 10 of Mexico’s Constitution permitted citizens to carry weapons “for their protection and legitimate defense,” even though some of the assault rifles the self-defense groups carry are restricted to use by police and soldiers. Since local police operate in tandem with organized crime, and state law agents are often in collusion as well, Mireles said the group had no option. “It is a legitimate and legal movement,” he said. “We are not criminals. What we need is justice. We need to restore the rule of law to Michoacán.” On a recent day, Mireles let a journalist accompany him to meetings with leaders of other municipal self-defense groups. While Mireles himself didn’t seem to carry a gun, many escorts carried weapons in a caravan of some 10 pickups and SUVs that sped along with blinking flashers. Some didn’t have license plates. But all carried placards on doors saying they were part of the self-defense forces.  The caravan sailed quickly through army checkpoints, indicating military tolerance, if not support, for the citizen groups. Mireles couldn’t work in his profession when he lived in Modesto because his Mexican medical certificate isn’t valid in the United States. So he took odd jobs: breaking rocks, canning boneless chicken, making auto rims, harvesting almonds. In his free time, he and a daughter volunteered as translators for the Modesto branch of the American Red Cross, later translating first-aid booklets and other Red Cross materials for the Michoacán migrants in the region. In 2007, Mireles brought his family back home, partly so that his eldest son, Jose Mireles Valencia, who’s now 26, could attend medical school. The son’s voice quivered a bit as he recounted how his father had gathered the family together earlier this year to announce that he’d form the self-defense group, alerting them to the dangers inherent in taking up arms. “He said he loved us and he was proud of us. Because I’m the eldest, he asked me to take care of the others when the time comes,” the son said. The son is nowhere near as confident as the father that the self-defense groups will succeed in keeping well-financed, heavily armed drug gangs at bay. “The chances of another cartel taking over here are 90 percent,” said the son, speaking in the English he learned at Evelyn Hanshaw Middle School and Modesto High School. “Emphasize this: It’s a temporary peace. In two years, we’ll be put back in the same or a worse situation.” “My children don’t want to be here,” the elder Mireles acknowledged. The threats are real, he said, and lots of corruption in the city has been exposed. When the self-defense group started up, Mireles said, he discovered that 124 police officers were on city payrolls, when in reality only 22 officers were employed. The rest was featherbedding, profits raked off by corrupt officials. The city’s mayor, Guillermo Valencia, fled and hasn’t returned. Mireles said his experience in California had showed him that good government was possible in his homeland. “I learned that you live better if you have better elected officials. In the United States, the police are honest, the tax system is not corrupt. Here, it is all crap,” he said. Asked why he stayed on, Mireles said, “There’s a bit of patriotism in some people, and in me it is strong.”
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Latest Photos of "El Chapo" Making Social Media Rounds Posted: 23 Nov 2013 06:30 PM PST Borderland Beat I add this post for your fun only-you go to the sites and look yourself as this isn't brand new news here and please no nasty comments. As usual I am just the messenger here.   @lopezperiodista   | ||
Jalisco state mass grave death total rises to 37 Posted: 23 Nov 2013 09:00 AM PST  By Chris Covert Rantburg.com Another four bodies were found in the La Barca, Jalisco mass grave Friday bringing the death toll to 37, according to Mexican news reports. According to an El Universal wire service report featured on the website of El Diario de Coahuilanews daily, all but two of the dead were men. Mexican Procuraduria General de la Republica(PGR) or attorney general Jesus Murillo Karam, was quoted saying that 31 bodies have been examined, but none of them are the two PGR ministerial agents who went missing two weeks ago. The grave was found after police detained 22 individuals of a kidnapping ring, including local police agents almost two weeks ago. Information from the raid led investigators to the La Barca site. Apparently the gravesite extends over an area which straddles the Michoacan and Jalisco state borders, and include Villa Hermosa municipality in Michoacan, as well as La Barca municipality. Michoacan is currently one of Mexico's most violent states, as drug cartels have reacted with violence to indigenous self defense groups, which were formed stop encroachment on Indian land considered sacred. Meanwhile in Tancitaro municipality, a Mexican Army road patrol exchanged gunfire with suspected members of Los Caballeros Templarios drug cartel Friday. The Proceso wire service report did not detail casualties in this latest encounter. Armed suspects were caught at around 1600 hrs. According to the wire report, the encounter was the third in Tancitaro municipality since November 16th, when self defense groups, colloquially known asautodefensa took control of Tepalcatepec and Buenavista Tomatlan municipalities. The report also mentions a separate shooting involving drug cartel shooters taking place in November 19th in Tancitaro municipality near the village of Zirimbo. In that incident, cartel shooters fired their weapons on a residence. Casualties in that shooting were not detailed in the wire report. Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com andBorderlandBeat.com. He can be reached at grurkka@gmail.com  |
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