MEXICO CITY — An explosion outside a police station in the western Mexican state of Michoacán on Saturday killed at least three people and wounded six, local and federal security officials said.
The blast came as the federal government has stepped up security activities in the state, sending in additional troops after two recent high-profile assassinations.
The attorney general’s office said in a statement that a vehicle exploded on a central avenue in Coahuayana. The driver died at the scene, two others died at a hospital and six were injured, the statement said.
The two victims who died at the hospital were local police officers, said Hector Zepeda, commander of the Coahuayana community police. He said the remains of some of the victims were found scattered in the area of the explosion, which also damaged buildings.
“With this operation [from the federal government], a lot of marines came,” Zepeda said. “We stopped doing patrols because the operation is going on.”
The community police forces, which patrol various rural communities, are a remnant of the civilian vigilante forces that took up arms more than a decade ago to defend communities from drug cartels, and then were formalized by the state.
Coahuayana is near the Pacific coast in western Michoacán and the border with Colima state, a stronghold of the powerful Jalisco New Generation cartel.
Saturday’s explosion happened while Michoacán Gov. Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla was in Mexico City to celebrate with President Claudia Sheinbaum the anniversary of their Morena party’s arrival in power seven years ago.
Ramírez Bedolla and Sheinbaum have been criticized for the deteriorating security situation in Michoacán, where numerous drug cartels are fighting to control territory, terrorizing residents.
At least three of the six drug cartels that the Trump administration designated as terrorist organizations — Jalisco New Generation, United Cartels and the New Michoacan Family — operate here, in addition to a slew of homegrown armed splinter groups, some supported by the Sinaloa cartel.
Explosives dropped from drones, buried as mines or planted alongside roadways are increasingly employed by criminal groups operating in the state. Last year, some 3,000 explosive devices were seized in the state, compared with 160 in 2022. So far this year, there have been more than 2,000, according to the state security agency.
Michoacán is a key importer of chemical precursors for synthetic drugs. In the last two months, 17 drug laboratories were dismantled by Mexican authorities there. The state also produces avocados exported to the U.S. and is a major producer of limes, sectors that have been cartel extortion targets for years.
The state government said Saturday in a statement that an “explosive device” was responsible, but did not provide details. Images from the scene circulating online showed a burned-out vehicle.
Last month, Sheinbaum sent 2,000 troops — on top of 4,300 permanent ones and 4,000 in neighboring states — to Michoacán after the killings of an outspoken representative of the lime growers and a popular mayor known for standing up to the cartels.
Verza writes for the Associated Press.
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