Cartel gunmen shot and killed an off-duty municipal police officer from the popular tourist port of Guaymas, Sonora, on Tuesday morning. With this most recent attack, the number of police officers killed in the municipality of Guaymas reached ten since October of 2018.
Cartel gunmen attacked the off-duty police officer identified as Marlon Osvaldo González Guanqui. The attack on the ten-year-police veteran came at approximately 9 am when two cartel gunmen on a motorcycle fired at least ten rifle rounds killing him instantly. González Guanqui, dressed in civilian clothes, was walking out of an Oxxo convenience store located on Boulevard Caribe and Mar del Norte in colonia Guaymas Norte in the northern section of the city.
The most recent wave of cartel violence against police officers in the popular tourist’s spot of Guaymas began in October 2018 when a convoy of cartel assassins with rifles attacked the Tactical Operations Group of the Municipal Police in Guaymas, leaving four officers dead and one seriously injured as reported by Breitbart’s Cartel Chronicles. An unarmed transit officer was also shot and killed by the cartel gunmen.
In late January of this year, cartel gunmen murdered the police chief from Empalme Sonora, a small town that borders the popular tourist port of San Carlos Bay, in Guaymas Sonora. A group of cartel gunmen pulled alongside the Empalme police chief’s vehicle and fired multiple rifle rounds killing him and wounding his bodyguard.
In April of this year, the commander of the tourist town of San Carlos’ police department was wounded and his bodyguard killed after cartel gunmen opened fire on them from a moving vehicle as they traveled in an official duty vehicle in Norte de Guaymas.
On June 29, cartel gunmen in Guaymas carried out two separate attacks within 30 minutes. The attacks killed three civilians and two police officers. Three additional police officers were wounded. Of the two officers killed, one died at the scene and the other died at a hospital in the state capital of Hermosillo.
In evening hours of June 27 and early June 28, cartel gunmen carried out a series of attacks in Guaymas leaving three civilians dead in two separate attacks and a police officer wounded when gunmen attacked a police substation with rifle fire.
Due to the ongoing violence nationwide, the federal government ordered the deployment of national guard personnel to various hotspots throughout the country. Approximately 1,800 personnel began to arrive in the southern section of the state of Sonora earlier this week. The guardsmen are tasked with supporting local, state, and federal police in cracking down on the spiking violence in the state. The violence is attributed to ongoing turf wars between rival cartels and regionally aligned drug gangs.
Over the weekend, a threatening message was being circulated by presumed cartel operatives over “what’s app” warning police of continued violence related to the ongoing cartel turf war. The messages warned police not to patrol at night or face violent consequences according to Breitbart law enforcement sources.
Guaymas/Empalme is approximately 240 miles south of the Mexican border with Arizona and features the San Carlos Bay, a tourist destination especially popular with residents of the nearby American state.
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.) You can follow him on Twitter. He can be reached at robertrarce@gmail.com.