The Killing of a Mayor Sparks an Outcry in Mexico

0:00Today on State of the World, the killing of a mayor sparks an outcry in Mexico.

0:09You're listening to State of the World from NPR. We bring you the day's most vital international stories up close where they're happening. I'm Greg Dixon. In a country drowning in corruption and violence, a mayor who took on organized crime became a folk hero. Carlos Manso was the mayor of Urwapan, a city in the Mexican state of Michoacán. And he openly battled organized crime in his city. He told officers to shoot criminals without hesitation. Then, during a Day of the Dead celebration in November, Manso was killed by a lone gunman. His assassination led to an eruption of protests in his state that spread across the country, and eventually to the capital, Mexico City.

0:54NPR's Eder Peralta was there for the protest, and he picks up the story.

1:02Thousands walk the streets of downtown, led by a big band. Some protesters dance like Carlos Manso used to. But as the crowd gets closer to the presidential palace, the chants grow angry. End the agreement, they denounced. End the narco-state. When they are feet away from the president's palace, their anger explodes.

1:33Young people, old people, people from the city, others who came from villages, band together to bring down the metal barricades that protect the palace. And then they face off with police.

1:50Police fire stunt grenades, tear gas, protesters hurl stones. This is for Manso, they shout. This is the force you should use against the narcos, they scream. Lourdes Campos, who's in her 60s, stands in awe. She's seen many protests, but this one had her thinking that maybe Mexico can change.

2:17They're going to regret the day they ordered Manso's assassination, she says. A few days after that protest, I find Esteban Constantino Magaña at the main plaza in Uruapan. This is where he saw his friend shot seven times. He kept driving past this place, but he hadn't dared to stop until tonight. The plaza is still cordoned off. On the sidewalks, on the grass, there are dozens of candles that were trampled when people ran from the gunshots.

2:54Right now I feel impotent, he says. I feel sad. Magaña says Carlos Manzo's project started small. They set up a table in the town center where they would sit every afternoon to hear people's problems.

3:11Before meeting Carlos, he says, I thought you had to be a millionaire to help others.

3:21But he taught me all you needed was the desire to help. At that table, they helped people find medicines, they helped them fight back against mistreatment at government offices, and they helped them get access to services at public hospitals. We made peaceful protests outside of hospitals. Manso, he says, would stand silently outside hospitals with a placard and a bandana over his mouth until a patient was given a surgery or the medicine they needed. Magaña smiles big. We got into a lot of trouble, he says. They all wore straw hats, so they became known as the movement of the hat. And Manso became incredibly popular.

4:03In 2021, he won a congressional seat by a landslide, and almost immediately, he began causing more trouble. In 2023, he slapped and kicked a state trooper, who he said was trying to extort a citizen. The people of Uruapan joined him, pelting the police with rocks. When he became mayor in September, he became a bulldozer. In the same plaza where he would be killed, he told his police force, everything changes now.

4:37I've been told that this city is run by this person or that person. I want to be clear, he said, the people run this town. He banned police from covering their faces. He hired citizens to keep watch over them. Manso himself, wearing a bulletproof vest, went on patrol. Once, he even rode a helicopter into the narco-controlled hills and literally called the shots.

5:06This September, one of his police officers was assassinated at a checkpoint.

5:15Everyone around Manso saw the killing as a warning.

5:22Independence Day celebrations were canceled. The town held a funeral instead, but Manso didn't back down.

5:33I still want to deliver the traditional cry, he said. But a cry for justice, justice for our officer. Justice for the disappeared.

5:57Justice so that organized crime groups are punished. And then he did something incredibly dangerous in Mexico. He named names.

6:11I mean the Jalisco New Generation cartel, he said, and the Knights Templar. Manso was killed less than two months after that, at a Day of the Dead celebration with hundreds of others. He had just put down his baby boy when a gunman took aim. It was a voice that was not heard in all of Mexico. His brother, Juan Daniel, says Manso was a voice that didn't exist in Mexico. He says it was planned. His brother wanted to be president. He says Manso made a bet that a head-on confrontation with crime could get him there. It was an dangerous bet that he ended up losing. It was a risky bet, he says, that he ended up losing.

6:58Juan Daniel Manso is the deputy secretary of the interior for the state of Michoacán. Organized crime in Mexico, he says, is a monster. Its tentacles reach across borders and into every crevice, from government to business. He wishes, he says, that his brother had been more prudent.

7:20A fight like this calls for big resources, firepower, intelligence. It's not a fight, he says, that you can win alone. The big cemetery in Uruapan is full of gravestones for young men in their 20s. Family members sit on graves playing music for the departed. Uruapan was where the brutality of the drug wars in Mexico first became apparent. It was here where in 2006, gunmen entered a bar and emptied a bag full of severed heads onto a dance floor. A Carlos Manso's grave, Guadalupe Fernandez and Maria Martinez bring flowers. Before Manso, they say this place was lawless. Shootouts, robberies, kidnappings.

8:12Fernandez stops herself as she mentions police. She looks over her shoulder. We're worried that we'll go back to how things used to be, she says.

8:27Carlos Manso left behind two kids. After his death, his straw hat movement chose his wife to replace him as mayor. I meet Grecia Quiroz at City Hall. She's a petite woman with braces on her teeth. She walks in holding Manso's hat. The truth is, she says, I've been thinking a lot about his actions. When I'm alone, she says, I ask, what were you thinking?

8:58Did you think nothing would happen to you? Did you even think about our kids or that future that you wanted so much?

9:16Sometimes, she says, I think that maybe this is what he wanted. Since Manso's death, Quiroz has given rousing speeches. She's calmed tempers on the streets. She's told police that she won't tolerate corruption either. I ask her, aren't you afraid you'll face the same fate as your husband?

9:41y yo irme lejos de aquí. I'll be honest, she says. The first thing I wanted to do was grab my kids and run far away from here. Pero al mismo tiempo pensé como si Carlos estuviera junto a mí. But then I felt like Carlos was next to me. Y si yo hacía eso, yo me sentía que yo lo estaba traicionando. And running, she said, would have felt like a betrayal. Of course she's scared, she says, but this has now become her duty. Her obligation. It's NPR's Eder Peralta in Mexico City.

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