Over 2,100 shot dead in Guatemala in January-June 2013

Guatemalan Police stated that "about" 2,185 people were shot dead in the country between 1 January and 23 June 2013, and 252 stabbed or cut to death, the daily Prensa Libre reported on 3 July, observing that the greatest number of crimes occurred in the capital and its environs. The resulting figure of 2,437 presumed crime victims was close to the homicide figure given by Police for the first six months of 2012, and well below 2,902 victims police counted for a similar period in 2011. Guatemala's new National Police chief Telémaco Pérez García, admitted speaking to the newspaper Siglo.21 on 2 July that the decline in murders had "stagnated" in the country after falling in 2011-12, but said "I think we will reduce them" by following the Interior Ministry's anti-crime strategies. He said he would pursue plans to make the police force more professional, including through dismissals of corrupt or incompetent elements and by imposing a "change of attitude" in the corps. There was a shortage of police weaponry he admitted, but he told the paper weapons were distributed in such a way as to ensure no policeman went on patrol unarmed. The general took office on 2 July. President Otto Pérez Molina also appointed a new Minister of Defence in late June, General Manuel López Ambrosio who replaced Colonel Ulises Anzueto Girón and would take office in mid-July, the official AGN news agency reported on 30 June.