While the murder of Wilfredo Flores Saucedo, the police chief of staff in Cancun, Mexico, didn’t involve a beheading like that of other recent killings of police officers in Tijuana and Guerrero state, it was brutal enough. According to police spokesman Oscar Meza, “a lot of his face was destroyed” after being shot at least 15 times.
The 56-year-old and his bodyguard, Alexander Xicoténcatl, were gunned down half an hour after having left his office, whilst driving down a busy avenue around midnight. The shooting took Meza aback:
“It surprised us. We can’t see a motive. He works in an office planning public security. He’s not on operations and has nothing to do with investigating drug cartels.”
While the popular resort city of Cancun is by no means immune from drug-related problems like trafficking and police corruption, not to mention sex crimes against young girls and several grisly murders of civilians, there have been fewer attacks against police here compared to other places in Mexico.
Flores was, however, until his death, the second highest-ranking police officer in Cancun. It is not unreasonable, as the local newspaper Novedades did, to presume his death was somehow related to drug gangs. This is particularly so in light of the recent slayings of police officers in the lead up to presidential elections on the second of July, as well as how wide the issue of illicit drugs and the related scourge of crime and corruption permeate Mexican society in general.
