MEXICO CITY\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Carlos Manzo blazed a maverick path as he battled both cartels and what he called skimpy federal support for his crusade against organized crime in his hometown of Uruapan, in western Mexico.<\/p>\n
The \u201cman with a hat,\u201d after his signature white sombrero, was an annoyance to the power structure in Mexico City, but beloved among many constituents for his uncompromising stance against the ruthless mobs that hold sway in much of the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey can kill me, they can abduct me, they can intimidate or threaten me,\u201d the outspoken Manzo declared on social media in June. \u201cBut the people who are sick of extortion, of homicides, of car thefts \u2014 they will demand justice.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added, \u201cThere is an enraged tiger out there \u2014 the people of Uruapan.\u201d<\/p>\n
That rage was on dramatic display last week, as tens of thousands marched through the streets of Uruapan and elsewhere in violence-plagued Michoac\u00e1n state to denounce the slaying of Manzo, 40. He was gunned down Nov. 1 amid a crowd of revelers, including his family, at a Day of the Dead celebration, in a killing that reverberated nationwide and beyond. <\/p>\n
The assassinations of other public figures in recent years have also triggered outrage and dismay in the country, but Manzo\u2019s death has unleashed something else: A divisive aftermath that has seen many questioning Mexico\u2019s very ability to confront the rampaging cartels in places like Michoac\u00e1n, where organized crime has a forceful grip on government, the economy and people\u2019s daily lives. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis structural control of organized crime is deeply worrying for the entire country,\u201d said Erubiel Tirado, a security expert at the Iberoamerican University in Mexico City. \u201cIt speaks of a crisis of legitimacy in terms of the government\u2019s ability to function.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Legislators from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) placed hats painted like blood on their seats in condemnation of the murder of Uruapan Mayor Carlos Manzo during a session in the Chamber of Deputies on Nov. 4, 2025, in Mexico City.<\/p>\n
(Luis Barron \/ Sipa USA via Associated Press )<\/p>\n
Mexico, wrote columnist Mariana Campos in El Universal newspaper, \u201cis fractured into zones where criminals set the rules, administer justice, charge taxes and decide who can be the mayor, who can be a businessman.\u201d<\/p>\n
Less than two weeks before Manzo\u2019s killing, police in Michoac\u00e1n found the battered body of Bernardo Bravo, a renowned leader of regional lime growers who had pushed back against cartel extortion demands. Bravo was shot in the head and his corpse showed signs of torture, authorities said. <\/p>\n
For months, the government of President Claudia Sheinbaum has rolled out statistics showing nationwide reductions in homicides and other offenses, along with the arrests of hundreds of organized crime figures \u2014 among them dozens expelled to face justice in the United States.<\/p>\n
Yet polls consistently show many Mexicans remain unconvinced. The death of Manzo \u2014 who cut a national reputation by insisting that officials coddled criminals \u2014 only heightened a pervasive sense of vulnerability, especially in places like Michoac\u00e1n.<\/p>\n
The picturesque region of verdant hillsides, pine-studded mountains and wild Pacific coastline has long been a hub of cartel violence. In 2006, then-President Felipe Calder\u00f3n chose Michoac\u00e1n as the place to declare Mexico\u2019s ill-fated \u201cWar on Drugs.\u201d <\/p>\n
That came a few months after an especially macabre incident in Uruapan: Cartel gunmen tossed five severed heads onto a nightclub dance floor.<\/p>\n
During the War on Drugs, the military was deployed to combat cartels, but the strategy backfired, significantly escalating violence nationwide and raising concerns about the militarization of the country and the trampling of human rights.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Relatives pull the coffin of Mexican journalist Mauricio Cruz Solis during his wake in Uruapan, Michoacan state, on Oct. 30, 2024. Cruz was shot dead Oct. 29 in western Mexico, a local prosecutor\u2019s office said, in a part of the country hit hard by organized crime.<\/p>\n
(Enrique Castro \/ AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
According to many in Uruapan and across the country, things have only gotten worse since then.<\/p>\n
\u201cBroadcast it to the entire world: In Mexico the narco-traffickers govern,\u201d said Arturo Mart\u00ednez, 61, who runs a handicraft shop in Uruapan, a city of more than 300,000 at the heart of Mexico\u2019s multibillion-dollar avocado industry<\/a>. \u201cWhat can any average person expect if they kill the mayor in front of his family, in front of thousands of people? We are completely at the mercy of the criminals.\u201d<\/p>\n It is a frequently voiced viewpoint that meshes with President Trump\u2019s comments that cartels exercise \u201ctotal control\u201d<\/a> in Mexico \u2014 a charge denied by Sheinbaum, though others say the breakdown in Michoac\u00e1n exemplifies a broader lack of control.<\/p>\n Uruapan \u201chas become a mirror of the country, a microcosm where the ability to govern goes off the tracks, [and] fear substitutes for the state,\u201d Denise Dresser, a political analyst, told Aristegui Noticias news outlet.<\/p>\n Manzo, an independent, broke with Sheinbaum\u2019s ruling Morena party more than a year ago and charged that the central government had ignored his pleas for additional police firepower and security funding to confront organized crime. <\/p>\n