A mayor was beheaded less than a week after taking office in the southwestern Mexican state of Guerrero.
Alejandro Arcos was found dead inside a truck in the municipality of Chilpancingo on Sunday afternoon.
Disturbing photos on social media showed Arco’s severed head lying on the vehicle.
The murder of the 43-year-old man came as Chilpancingo was still reeling from last Thursday’s murder of its newly appointed town clerk.
‘They have murdered our mayor of Chilpancingo, Alejandro Arcos, and just three days ago the secretary of this same City Council, Francisco Tapia,’ Alejandro Moreno, national leader of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Moreno said both men were “young, honest officials who sought progress for their community.”
Alejandro Arcos, mayor of the city of Chilpancingo in southwestern Mexico, was murdered and beheaded on Sunday afternoon. Authorities had not made any arrests as of Monday afternoon.
Authorities in Chilpancingo, a city in the state of Guerrero, in southwestern Mexico, locate the truck where the body of murdered mayor Alejandro Arcos was found murdered. The severed head of a 43-year-old man was found on top of the vehicle.
Just hours before his death, Arcos visited the Plan de Ayala and Yerbabuena neighborhoods in Chilpancingo and met with residents whose homes were damaged by Hurricane John two weeks ago.
“Our priority is to protect those living in vulnerable areas and ensure that the necessary measures are taken,” he wrote on Facebook. ‘My commitment is clear: we will continue working hand in hand with society to restore basic services in the affected neighborhoods. Together we will get ahead.”
On Friday, Arcos appeared on Radio Formula and told veteran journalist Ciro Gómez Leyva to call on the federal government to increase the presence of security forces in Chilpancingo and expand protection for city government personnel after Tapia’s murder.
‘We will continue working, we will continue fighting for our community,’ Arcos said. ‘We have always talked about a peace project, it has been our flag, our proposal and that is what we aspire to. We are not people of conflict.’
The late mayor Alejandro Arcos (right) leaves behind a wife and a son. The 43-year-old politician was murdered just six days after being sworn in as mayor of Chilpancingo, a city in the state of Guerrero, in southwestern Mexico.
Investigators and forensic personnel are working at the crime scene where the remains of Chilpancingo Mayor Alejandro Arcos were found in a vehicle on Sunday.
Dr. Gustavo Alarcón, who was chosen as a substitute candidate for the Institutional Revolutionary Party, may replace Mayor Alejandro Arcos, murdered on Sunday
According to article 24 of the Law of Electoral Institutions and Procedures of the State of Guerrero, the functions of mayor will fall to Gustavo Alarcón, a surgeon, who was designated as a substitute candidate by the Institutional Revolutionary Party.
Alarcón, who ran for mayor in 2021 under the National Action Party, has not said whether he will accept the position.
Arcos ran with a coalition that included the Institutional Revolutionary Party, the National Action Party and the Democratic Revolution Party and promised not to enter into agreements with criminal organizations, a shot at his eventual predecessor, who was filmed in an alleged meeting with Celso. Ortega, leader of the Ardillos drug trafficking gang, who has clashed with his rival Tlacos.
Three videos leaked in July and August 2023 showed former Mayor Hernández sitting across from Ortega in a restaurant.
She was expelled from the ruling Morena party last month, just three weeks before her term ended.
Hours before he was killed on Sunday, Mayor Alejandro Arcos visited Chilpancingo neighborhoods affected by Hurricane John last month.
Also in July 2023, federal officials said the Ardillos gang had organized a demonstration held by hundreds of people in Chilpancingo that month to secure the release of two gang leaders arrested for drug and weapons possession.
Protesters largely blocked all traffic on the highway between Mexico City and Acapulco for two days, fighting security forces and seizing an armored police truck and using it to break down the doors of the legislature building. state.
Protesters kidnapped 10 members of the state police and National Guard, as well as three state and federal officials, and held them hostage to enforce their demands before releasing them.