State Department Warning: Mexican State and Local Police Capabilities ‘Nonexistent’

Gulf Cartel Killings - REUTERS-MARIO VAZQUEZ
REUTERS-MARIO VAZQUEZ

MCALLEN, Texas — As cartel violence continues to take hold of Mexican border cities and various states throughout that country, the U.S. Department of State has once again issued a strongly worded travel warning. The travel warning points out that state and local law enforcement in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas is non-existent.

“Throughout the state violent crime, including homicide, armed robbery, carjacking, kidnapping, extortion, and sexual assault, pose significant safety risks,” the travel warning revealed. “State and municipal law enforcement capacity is limited to nonexistent in many parts of Tamaulipas.”

The travel warning which was issued this week replaced last month’s warning which Breitbart Texas had previously reported on where it detailed that 181 Americans had been murdered there since 2013.

In the warning, the State Department makes reference to gun battles between rival criminal organizations or with Mexican authorities that have taken place in many parts of Mexico.

Just last week as Breitbart Texas reported, cartel members shot down a Mexican military helicopter in the Mexican state of Jalisco during a series of fierce firefights that spread to nearly two dozen municipalities and resulted in gunmen torching scores of businesses and vehicles.

The travel warning focuses special attention on Tamaulipas, a Mexican border state that official from that country routinely claim is either safe or that the security conditions are improving.

The Department of State pointed to the border cities of Matamoros, Reynosa, Nuevo Laredo, and the Tamaulipas capital of Ciudad Victoria as having been the scene of “numerous gun battles and attacks with explosive devices in the past year”. As Breitbart Texas previously reported, the increase in violence along the border areas can be linked in part to a new war within the Gulf Cartel where two rival factions began to fight for control in February.

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