Drug trafficker may have been the target of attack on Mexican city hall that killed 20 people

One of the leaders of the Mexican criminal organization dedicated to drug trafficking and nicknamed ‘Familia Michoacana’, José Alfredo Hurtado, nicknamed ‘El Fresa’, could have been the target of the attack carried out on Wednesday in the town of San Miguel Totolapán, in the state of Guerrero, and in which 20 people were killed, including the mayor of the municipality.

This has been assured by ‘Fresa’ himself in a video broadcast on the social network YouTube in which he details that someone from the town, “who they do not have identified”, would have betrayed them, as he lives near the town hall. “Everyone knows me and everyone knows where I live,” he said, as reported by the newspaper ‘Proceso’.

The member of ‘Familia Michoacana’ went out that day because he agreed to hold a meeting with the mayor of San Miguel Totolapan and with his father, former mayor of the town. He arrived at the meeting shortly after the attacks began, so he was able to flee.

The lines of investigation into what happened led by the Prosecutor’s Office of Guerrero indicate that it could have been due to a dispute between the criminal group ‘Los Tequileros’ and the Familia Michoacana.

The armed group carried out three simultaneous attacks on the homes of the mayor of San Miguel Totolapán, Conrado Mendoza, his father and former mayor of the municipality Juan Mendoza, as well as an assault on the town hall building, where 18 people were killed, as reported by ‘El Universal’.

In the attack on the town hall, a group of at least 15 heavily armed men violently entered the San Miguel Totolapán town hall, from where the gang began firing into the public building.

After that, seven municipal police officers who were guarding the building and who initially repelled the attack by ‘Los Tequileros’, were finally mortally wounded with shots from AR-15 and AK-47 assault rifles, according to the newspaper.

The rest of the people killed were city hall workers. In addition to the dead, three people were wounded in the attack on the public building and were taken to a medical center by helicopter.

Simultaneously, other members of this group attacked the private home of the mayor of the town and that of his father, without being able to confirm so far the aggression or death of other civilians in both attacks.