The Government of Michoacán has appointed police officer José Antonio Cruz Medina as the new Secretary of State Security. The official, who was director of the National Guard and the defunct Federal Police, was announced as “a strategic replacement” after the crisis sparked by the murder of Uruapan mayor Carlos Manzo. Cruz Medina replaces Juan Carlos Oseguera, as part of Plan Michoacán, the strategy created by President Claudia Sheinbaum to address the spiral of violence in the entity.
Manzo’s brutal murder during the Day of the Dead celebration, just days after the assassination of Apatzingán Lemons leader Bernardo Bravo, once again placed Michoacán as the Mexican government’s “national priority.” Sheinbaum announced what is now the state’s fourth peace plan in two decades. The president announced a series of one hundred measures to tackle the problem at its root. The actions include investing 57 billion and sending 10,000 soldiers to the entity, as well as new strategies to combat extortion of farmers, expanding scholarships and social support for students, and investing in public roads and fences.
It is to consolidate this strategy that the intelligence and security expert, José Antonio Cruz Medina, was appointed. The official comes, like the powerful Security Secretary, Omar García Harfuch, from the defunct Federal Police. This agency, eliminated by former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to create the National Guard, has regained importance under the Sheinbaum administration. The president’s strategy, which gave García Harfuch total power to address the country’s violence crisis, is now supported by trained commanders in the Federal Police.
To Francisco Almazán, director of the National Intelligence Center; Héctor Elizalde, undersecretary of Research, or Omar Reyes, head of the Financial Intelligence Unit (of the Ministry of Finance), now join Cruz Medina. The government of Michoacán announced that the police officer’s appointment “seeks to strengthen coordinated actions between federal and state institutions in fighting crime and reducing violence.” It is the same line that, for example, is being pursued in Guanajuato, another of Sheinbaum’s priority states. In this entity, the governor of the PAN Libya Denisse García appointed Mauro González, also from the old Federal Police.
Cruz Medina takes office after having served as deputy prosecutor of the Michoacán Prosecutor’s Office, where he directed the areas of analysis, intelligence and police operations. Previously, until 2022, the official had been director of the National Guard, in the National Anti-Kidnapping Coordination, responsible for the field investigation area, and from 2017 to 2019 he was director of technical and tactical operations of the Federal Police, from there he “coordinated investigations against high-impact criminal groups and managed to capture several priority targets”. With his twenty years of experience, we read in the statement from the Government of Michoacán, “he will strengthen the security strategy of the entity”.
The administration of Morenoist governor Alfredo Ramírez was severely damaged after Manzo’s murder. The mayor of Uruapan had already warned that they would kill him and had asked for help. However, the presence of a dozen members of the National Guard did not prevent a gunman, aged just 17, from taking the life of the founder of the Hat Movement.
