In response to the cartel violence that has engulfed the once peaceful tourist beach resort towns of La Paz and Los Cabos in Baja California Sur, the Mexican government announced the deployment 2,000 military and police officers to restore peace.
The Mexican government deployed 1,200 Mexican Navy Infantrymen and 800 federal cops called Gendarmes in an apparent response to the recent murders of the state’s human rights commissioner Silvestre de la Toba Camacho in Los Cabos and a state police commander in charge of the communications system in La Paz. As Breitbart Texas reported, Baja California Sur has gone from 147 murder cases between January and October in 2016 to having 409 during the same time frame in 2017.
Ricardo Barroso Agramont, a senator of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), told local news outlet BCS Noticias that the Mexican Navy would assume command of the state and local police forces in La Paz and Los Cabos.
The Gendarmes or gendarmerie is a federal force created in 2014 for hotspots where the local municipal and state police are unable to control cartel violence. The Gendarmerie officers receive special training in Colombia, Chile, Spain, France, and the United States.
This escalation of violence in Baja California Sur is linked to a split within the Sinaloa cartel and a push by the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) to take control of key beach resort areas.
Robert Arce is a retired Phoenix Police detective with extensive experience working Mexican organized crime and street gangs. Arce has worked in the Balkans, Iraq, Haiti, and recently completed a three-year assignment in Monterrey, Mexico, working out of the Consulate for the United States Department of State, International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Program, where he was the Regional Program Manager for Northeast Mexico (Coahuila, Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, Durango, San Luis Potosi, Zacatecas.)