The cartel tried to extort a city, but the city fought back, officials say

At least 14 people were killed in a clash between gunmen and members of a small farming community in central Mexico, state authorities said on Saturday, portraying the violence as a gang extortion attempt that failed when residents fought back.

Officials said those killed as a result of Friday’s clash included four locals from the community, the town of Texcapilla, and 10 people suspected of being cartel members; seven other people were injured and more were missing.

Delfina Gómez, the governor of the state of Mexico, where Texcapilla is located, said at a press conference on Saturday morning that she had asked for security to be strengthened in the region.

“These events do not paralyze us; on the contrary, they reaffirm our commitment to improving the security conditions of our beloved state,” she said. “We will continue to work to ensure these types of episodes do not occur again.”

The Secretary of State for Security, Andrés Andrade Téllez, said the military had received reports on Thursday that armed men belonging to a cell of the La Familia Michoacana cartel were demanding payments from deputies of several communities about 30 miles (48 km) from Texcapilla.

The violence the next day, captured on video that The New York Times independently verified, took place on the city’s sports field. Dozens of villagers, carrying machetes and shotguns, approach the gunmen as arguments become heated. Then the first shots are fired. Some people run. Others chase the suspected gang members and attack them with machetes.

It was an example of how resentment can motivate people to fight back against the gangs that torment them every day.

“The communities are doing this out of a sense of fed up and desperation,” said Sandra Ley, program coordinator for México Evalúa, a research institute that focuses on public security policy. “From that position of ‘no more.’”

Recently, extortion has become increasingly common in Mexico as criminal gangs have “abandoned the drug trade and moved to a territorially based extraction model,” said Falko Ernst, a senior analyst for the International Crisis Group, an organization that promotes conflict avoidance .

Extortion rates reached record levels Last year, an average of nearly eight cases of extortion were reported per 100,000 residents, according to data from prosecutors and the National Institute of Statistics and Geography. The high during the previous administration was five cases per 100,000 residents.

“There have been quite a few reactions to this. A bit more organized. A little more spontaneous,” said Mr. Ernst. “But especially under this government, the territorial control of these groups has been given more leeway and more passivity thanks to the ‘hugs, not bullets’ security strategy.”

Since taking office in 2018, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has promised that his government would tackle the root causes of crime. But his efforts so far have done little to curb Mexico’s extraordinary violence or reduce the cartels’ growing power, even as the military and Mexican National Guard have been deployed across the country.

“There has been no policy to prevent social crime,” Ms Ley said. “Organized crime is winning.”

The outbreak of violence in Texcapilla was likely the result of tensions that had built up as locals were targeted by criminal groups, experts say. But the hostility toward the cartels is hardly unique.

“Hopefully we won’t be surprised again by something like this in other places that are just as besieged and fed up with the situation,” Ms Ley said. “We cannot allow the tension to rise until we have fourteen deaths.”