This is the exact chronicle of the terrible events that took place on Thursday October 17th, in Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico.
CULIACAN Mexico (Media outlets) – October 17th.- 1330 hours… Ovidio Guzmán was eating in a seafood food truck in Colonia Tierra Blanca together with 8 members of his team and his wife, along with 5 more families with several children. A military team of 50 agents dressed as civilians arrived. The streets were closed and El Chapo’s son was surrounded and told to surrender without resistance.
Ovidio Guzmán shouted: “don’t shoot, there are families and children here, I am not going to put up resistance” He handed over his weapon and was taken to the prosecutor’s office 6 km away.
As soon as they took him away, his men asked for reinforcements from their people in the area. In a matter of minutes, Guzmán’s men gathered outside the Prosecutor’s Office and tried to negotiate. Guzmán was kept in an armored room while the local authorities wait for the military reinforcements. Suddenly, a shooting is unleashed outside the “Tres Rios” prosecutor’s office, in the heart of Culiacán, an area surrounded by plazas, restaurants, businesses, schools, etc…
Seeing that Guzmán was not being released, the narcos move to a residential neighborhood where military families live. They walled up the place with people from Guzmán López and held families hostage. They lined up women and children around two gasoline pipes, they threatened to burn everyone!
The narcos realize that military support is coming and all hell brakes loose.
Guzmán López’s group asks for reinforcements from all their local people and from the nearby mountainous areas. The people of “Azul Esparragoza,” “Mayo Zambada,” “Los Limones,” “Los Avendaño,” “Los Fernández,” among others, who have their own armed troops, begin to close the entrances to Culiacán, the main roads and avenues with burning trucks, trailers and cars.
Hitmen on motorcycles began to steal SUVs from civilians on the streets, and in a lapse of 4 hours there were more than 30 confrontations with soldiers and state police in different points of the city. At this moment, it is almost impossible to reach the prosecutor’s office, so the Mexican army can not pick up Ovidio Guzmán.
Civilians are caught in the streets in the crossfire. The telephone lines are saturated, people cannot move, the city is in chaos and in total psychosis.
Aerial reinforcements arrived and more than 15 helicopters flew through the city firing at the organized crime convoys, after a while, the narcos shot down a helicopter with a missile near the town of “El Diez”.
The Mexican state has been brought to its knees. The president of Mexico orders the release of Ovidio Guzmán. His people immediately take him to safety somewhere safe for them by once again initiating shootings throughout the city to distract the direction of where they are taking him.
At midnight, gunshosts can still be heard in different parts of the city, the shooting lasted about 11 hours with two moments of intensity:
- The first was when they surrounded the prosecutor’s office and closed bridges and entrances throughout the city.
- The second after the liberation of El Chapo’s son.
This morning, at 0700 hours, gushots could sporadically be heard in different parts of the state capital. The city is almost deserted, no cars on the streets and only 2 helicopters flying over.
The local and federal government showed absolutely no intelligence nor logistics whatsoever. They were not prepared to detain this criminal, to face the forces of drug trafficking organizations, and even less ready to remove this drug lord from El Chapo’s hometown of Culiacan. Their incompetence put the entire city at total risk.
So far, the federal government has confirmed 9 casualties. The balance according to reporters on the scene was:
- 3 civilians killed by stray bullets
- 15 civilians injured.
- 7 dead soldiers
- 5 policemen killed
- 13 agents wounded
- 4 dead and wounded criminals (the number is unknown, they were taken away).
- At the local prison, the narcos knocked down a wall and 53 prisoners escaped.
Culiacán remains in state of alert.
The Yucatan Times Newsroom
