Vigilantes in Standoff with Army After Community Invites Them to Help with Security Damien Gayle - MailOnline
go to original February 2, 2015

Vigilantes with a man they have arrested in the village of Petaquillas during an operation to apprehend suspected offenders in the town after local people asked for help with security. (Pedro Pardo/Getty Images)

Vigilantes faced off with the Mexican army after they were asked by residents of a town terrorized by drug cartels to help them protect themselves.

Hundreds of men armed mainly with shotguns, rifles and pistols entered a town near Chilpancingo, the capital of Mexico's Guerrero state, after a wave of robberies, murders and extortion.

The vigilantes from the United Front for Security and Development in Guerrero State, or FUSDEG, had been invited by residents of Petaquillas, a community on the front line of a turf war between two powerful organized crime groups.

But after they set up a checkpoint controlling access to Chilpancingo, around 200 soldiers rushed to the scene and threatened to disarm the community policemen, sparking a tense stand-off.

Francisco Arroyo, commander of the 50th Infantry Battalion, told Sin Embargo his soldiers were conducting a routine sweep to Acapulco when the vigilantes 'caught our attention ... because they are affecting a main road.'

Residents responded to the deployment of government troops by moving in with more trucks of their own, reinforcing the vigilantes and demanding the soldiers withdraw because 'they have nothing to do here'.

Read the rest and see photos at MailOnline

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