Tuesday 26 March 2013

Armed residents warn will shoot criminals in Tabasco

The self-styled United People Against Crime (Pueblo Unido Contra la Delincuencia), one of several "self-defence" militias people have formed around Mexico to confront crime, reportedly claimed responsibility for shooting dead five suspected drug dealers on 21 March, and vowed to continue to "cleanse" districts in the east-coast state of Tabasco of street dealers, kidnappers and rapists. The group issued written warnings to the "poisoners of society" on large sheets hung in public - a practice favoured by drug cartels - in the districts of Villahermosa and Cárdenas, specifying it would continue to execute suspects if drug dealing continued on the streets and police allegedly continued to back the Zetas, one of Mexico's most violent cartels, Proceso reported. "We are not playing with you," one of the sheets reportedly read, "this beautiful state belongs to the people and is for the people not for criminals and corrupt policemen who work in league with this scum." According to Proceso, the chief prosecutor of Tabasco Fernando Valenzuela recognized the group's existence in Tabasco on 20 February. In a separate incident on 23 March locals in the district of Texcoco outside the capital almost lynched a suspected thief and fought police trying to free him, damaging a police car, La Crónica de Hoy reported. Residents of the locality of Tequesquinahuac gave the 20-year-old suspect a beating before police could take him away.

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