MEXICO CITY—Since taking office last year as mayor of Uruapan, Carlos Manzo often led police raids wearing his bulletproof vest and cowboy hat to fulfill his mandate to end endemic extortion in the avocado capital of the world.
The 40-year-old Manzo knew that the criminal gangs he confronted had more resources and superior weaponry. He was gunned down on Saturday as he officiated a candle-lighting ceremony for Day of the Dead, one of the main religious festivities in Mexico’s western Michoacán state.
His work as mayor was characterized by his critical stance toward the administration of leftist President Claudia Sheinbaum, who has focused on reducing violence and developing intelligence to counter cartels while avoiding bloody confrontations with heavily armed criminal groups.
The killing put Sheinbaum on the defensive amid growing frustration over the relentless violence by Mexico’s transnational criminal organizations. She said Monday that returning to a militarized strategy in the war on drugs won’t curb impunity. She blamed the country’s security crisis on the hard-line policies implemented by administrations that governed Mexico from 2006 to 2018.
Sheinbaum faces pressure from the U.S. government, which has threatened to take unilateral military action in Mexico to fight cartels. U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, a former U.S. ambassador to Mexico, wrote on his X feed on Sunday that the U.S. was ready to deepen security cooperation.
Sheinbaum said her government had accepted the U.S. offer for help in obtaining information and intelligence, but she rejected U.S. intervention in Mexico’s affairs. “Intervention isn’t justice,” she said.
Manzo had publicly challenged Sheinbaum to prove that the government’s “hugs, not bullets” strategy, introduced by her predecessor and mentor Andrés Manuel López Obrador, could succeed in reducing crime in Uruapan.
Manzo founded a political group called the Hat Movement, a reference to his emblematic cowboy hat. Known by residents as blunt and impulsive, Manzo had a hands-on approach to law enforcement. He fearlessly expressed what no one else dared to say in a community terrorized by criminal gangs.
“We are surrounded by armed groups, surrounded by clandestine graves,” he said in a recent video recording posted on social media.
Manzo received 65% of the vote in last year’s local elections. On numerous occasions since then, he requested support from the federal government and the state of Michoacán to confront organized crime. He said that criminals who resisted arrest should be killed if they didn’t surrender.
“He was seen as impulsive and untamed, like a horse you ride and it throws you off,” said Eduardo Guerrero, a security consultant based in Mexico City. “He had the courage to speak his mind. But if you take on that role, you have to reinforce your security and not stroll around the plaza. The risk was enormous.”
In late August, Manzo went on social media to warn Uruapan residents that his municipal police had captured the local head of the powerful Jalisco cartel, and that as a result, gunmen had mobilized to enter the city. He asked residents to stay home.
His assassination on Saturday night sparked outrage and protests in the hub of Mexico’s multibillion-dollar avocado and lime export industry, long targeted by extortion rackets.
Thousands of people marched in Manzo’s funeral procession on Sunday, demanding that the federal government take action against the Jalisco cartel and rival gangs.
In the state capital of Morelia, several dozen protesters broke down the door of the ornate government palace, started a fire and threw furniture out the window. Organizers are planning a larger protest in Mexico City later this month.
Outrage risks paving the way for the return of well-armed vigilante groups that confronted gangs involved in extortion, kidnapping and homicide, analysts say. Manzo’s killing came days after the death of Bernardo Bravo, a businessman and president of the lime-growers association in Apatzingán, some 60 miles south of Uruapan. Bravo was killed as producers staged protests demanding an end to extortion.
Sheinbaum said Monday that there would be no return to the policies of previous administrations that she blamed for an unprecedented explosion of violence.
“That didn’t work and was what brought us to this situation of violence in Michoacán,” she said during her morning news conference.
She pledged to continue with her policy of strengthening Mexico’s National Guard, concentrating on the use of police intelligence to take down violent criminals while addressing the social causes of crime.
Sheinbaum criticized political opponents who she said were taking advantage of Manzo’s killing to attack the government, and said she had ordered an investigation into the surge in antigovernment posts on social media.
Security Minister Omar García Harfuch said the assassin, who was shot dead by one of Manzo’s bodyguards, hadn’t been identified but is believed to have been working for one of the cartels. García Harfuch said the killer took advantage of the Day of the Dead event, which was open to the public and didn’t have any security filters to protect the mayor.
Michoacán Gov. Alfredo Ramírez was met with jeers and insults at Manzo’s funeral on Sunday. Many attendees demanded his resignation, and one woman slapped him.
“We will act immediately to ensure justice and peace for the people of Uruapan,” Ramírez wrote on X on Sunday.
As the funeral procession of angry residents marched through the streets of Uruapan, Manzo’s black horse walked behind the coffin. The iconic cowboy hat Manzo wore was placed on the saddle.
Write to José de Córdoba at jose.decordoba@wsj.com and Santiago Pérez at santiago.perez@wsj.com
