The state Attorney General’s office reports 907 murders so far this year in Guadalajara, the highest in the last eight years.
Luridly emblematic of the spike in killings is an incident which occurred on Tuesday, when two severed heads were found in a cooler in front of the offices of broadcaster Televisa, about a dozen blocks south from the University of Guadalajara Museum of Art and the Templo Expiatorio.
Televisa security guards happened upon the grisly package at 7 p.m., along with a message written in multicolored neon ink. The letter’s authors are thought to be members of the New Generation Cartel of Jalisco.
The message contained a threat against Jesus Humberto Boruel Nery, a former rank-and-file police officer promoted to inspector general of the state’s police force in 2015. It seems to indicate a betrayal of trust on the part of Boruel Nery, who the authors claim has their gang to thank for his current position.
Completing the picture was the discovery of two headless corpses early Wednesday, quickly identified as corresponding to Tuesday’s find.
Across town in Zapopan, a few hours after the Televisa incident, another cooler, contents unknown, was discovered in front of the municipality’s main court house. It was also accompanied by a written threat, this time directed at a judge.
Finally, a trifecta of execution was achieved when a single body was found stuffed in a black bag in Tonala, predictably accompanied by yet another grim message, this time stating that the murder’s perpetrator was one “Chapulin” and that more “cleansing” was soon to follow.
A Newsweek article reporting on this week’s rash of executions in Guadalajara may be an indicator that Mexico’s ever-escalating cartel violence continues to fascinate U.S. readers. However, Mexican tourism authorities, worried about the effect that ghastly accounts of headless corpses will have on their economically vital industry, are hastening, as ever, to minimize the violence.
“Fortunately, or rather, unfortunately, these are things that happen all over the world,” said Jalisco Tourism Secretary Enrique Ramos Flores, during a press conference addressing the homicides.
“Forgive me for bringing this up,” continued Ramos, “but recently in the United States there have been many terrible things happening, without any of the sort of warnings that the U.S. State Department issues [to U.S. citizens traveling to Mexico]. [The recent murders] are a product of metropolises, of large urban areas where there are clashes between organized crime groups.”