Mexican Vigilantes Say They'll Keep Weapons Till Cartel Bosses Are Arrested Tim Johnson - McClatchyDC
go to original January 21, 2014

Hipolito Mora, a leader of armed vigilantes in Mexico's Michoacan state, speaks during an interview in the town of La Ruana on Jan. 16, 2014. (Tim Johnson/MCT)

LA RUANA, Mexico — A week after the federal government seized security functions in troubled Michoacan state, the organized crime group wreaking havoc in the state has gone to ground.

But the top three leaders of the Knights Templar gang remain at large, and the armed citizens militia that’s put the gang on the run says it won’t give up its weapons until the leaders are caught.

“If they don’t capture these people, then we will remain armed,” said Hipolito Mora, one of the founders of the vigilante movement that began 11 months ago and has occupied much of the state where the Knights Templar had been active.

Mora spoke to reporters in an open-air shed one day last week, and his message wasn’t lost on Mexican federal officials. National Public Safety System Secretary Monte Rubido acknowledged in a news conference Sunday that smashing the Templar leadership is a top priority and that “it is essential . . . that the visible leaders of the criminal groups be arrested.”

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