Milton Morales Figueroa reportedly killed by gunmen while enjoying a family day out

Mexico City’s head of intelligence and police operations has been gunned down in an apparent drug cartel hit.

Milton Morales Figueroa, 40, is reported to have died instantly in a hail of bullets in the town of Coacalco, just north of the Mexican capital, on a family day out on Sunday.

He was hit at least twice in the head when gunmen jumped out of two SUVs with darkened windows which had suddenly pulled up as the police commander and relatives stopped at a small supermarket in a residential street. Two other people were reportedly injured. One is thought to have been a bodyguard and the other a family member.

  • zabadoh@ani.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    42
    ·
    2 months ago

    Somewhat ironically, Omar Garcia Harfuch, nominated to her cabinet by Mexican President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum, was a former Mexico Police Chief who survived an assassination attempt in 2020.

    Garcia Harfuch is suspected of being involved in the infamous disappearances of 43 students from Ayotzinapa Rural Teacher’s College, being head of the Federal Police of the region who abducted and allegedly tortured the students before killing them. https://nacla.org/rebirth-omar-garcia-harfuch

  • tlou3please@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    34
    ·
    2 months ago

    I don’t know anything about the guy but it must take some serious balls to do a job like that in Mexico City.

    • Guntrigger@sopuli.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      18
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      2 months ago

      For a second I thought you were talking about the hit, but now I realise you mean the police chief part.

      • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        edit-2
        2 months ago

        The hit too. To be so expendable, it was a suicide mission, and the shooters’ families, so expendable, too. They hand you the gun; you can either shoot them, shoot yourself, or go shoot some stranger, and if you do anything other than shoot the stranger, they kill you and your family, too. That’s what’s behind the drug trade. Mexico doesn’t go after the banks that enable the cartels, so this is what they choose.

        It’s like in America how the old-monied elites refuse to act on overwhelmingly popular gun reforms, so they have chosen unchecked firearms deaths for the American public.

  • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    24
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    2 months ago

    “attacks on senior officers from the capital remain relatively rare”

    Goes on to describe another attack 3 and 1/2 years ago on a senior officer from the capital.

      • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        2 months ago

        Yeah, they already throw in all the specifics of “senior” officials “from the capital city”, but attacks are still so common there that they have to add in “relatively”.

  • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    12
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    2 months ago

    Jfc. The cartels have way too much power, they are Mexico’s long embarrassment. Have to go after the banks that handle the money. They know where it’s coming from.

    Oh well, can’t pick your neighbors.

  • cygnus@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    13
    arrow-down
    32
    ·
    2 months ago

    Mexico has been essentially a failed state for about 200 years. Its history is a series of coups and revolutions punctuated by periods of instability like we have today.

    • circuscritic@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      33
      arrow-down
      4
      ·
      2 months ago

      Mexico is highly dysfunctional and suffering from extreme levels of political violence, but no, it’s not a failed state.

      • itsnicodegallo
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        2 months ago

        Isn’t it their fault to begin with though? Spanish conquistadors aren’t known for their positive influence on Native American peoples.

      • GBU_28
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        2 months ago

        Comical take. Say more so I might watch with popcorn

    • remotelove@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      67
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      2 months ago

      Like, we go bomb the shit out of them and keep the country in limbo long enough for the power vacuum to be filled with a couple of larger terrorist groups?

        • GBU_28
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          2 months ago

          Edit your silly goose comment to reflect your silly goose perspective

          • positiveWHAT@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            2 months ago

            I mean sending in some UN troops to cleanse the country of the cartels. Have you seen the type of violence they do?

            • GBU_28
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              2 months ago

              “cleanse the country” holy shit

              • positiveWHAT@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                2 months ago

                It’s also laughable to think the USA could do it when they can’t even keep their own police up to standards.

    • ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      25
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      2 months ago

      What’s the “Iraq treatment”? The U.S. spending a trillion dollars to create enough instability for something like ISIS to emerge?