Confronting Mexico’s Knights Templar cartel
Armed men – members of a vigilante group – keep watch in Coalcoman community, in Michoacan State, Mexico. Vigilante groups, calling themselves “community police”, have sprung up in western and southern Mexican towns, in an effort to combat drug-related violence.
COALCOMAN, Mexico — From a desk overlooking the shady plaza of his backwater mountain town, Mayor Rafael Garcia recounts how he and other citizens finally mustered the nerve to take on the gangsters tormenting them.
“The problem started when they began messing with the population: extortion, rapes, killings," Garcia, 42, says of the Knights Templar, the fancifully named cartel of thugs who control many of western Michoacan state's 113 counties. "We were terrified. We are still terrified.”
“We are a very small town raising its voice,” he says. “Hopefully it will have an impact.”
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