Top Qs
Timeline
Chat
Perspective
Carlos Manzo
Mexican politician (1985–2025) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Remove ads
Carlos Alberto Manzo Rodríguez[b] (9 April 1985[a] – 1 November 2025) was a Mexican politician known for his outspoken stance against organized crime groups in Mexico. He served in the Chamber of Deputies for the National Regeneration Movement (Morena) from 2021 to 2024. In 2024, he broke with the national party to run as an independent for the office of municipal president (mayor) for Uruapan, Michoacán.
As mayor, Manzo gained national attention after declaring a zero-tolerance stance against organized crime in the municipality and criticizing President Claudia Sheinbaum's administration and policies; as a result, he received comparisons with Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele, although he rejected the analogy. During the evening of 1 November 2025 – Day of the Dead in Mexico – Manzo was murdered at a festival. His assassination drew widespread outrage in Uruapan and violent protests elsewhere in the state, and a nationwide protest is being called for 15 November.
Remove ads
Early and personal life
Carlos Alberto Manzo Rodríguez was born on 9 April 1985[a] in Uruapan, the second largest city in the state of Michoacán.[4][5] He was the son of Juan Manzo Ceja, founder of the first gallery for visual artists in the city and who led a peaceful civil protest in 1992 denouncing a local electoral fraud.[6] Manzo Rodríguez earned a bachelor's degree in political science and public administration from the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Occidente (ITESO), a Jesuit university in Guadalajara, Jalisco.[3]
Manzo was married to Grecia Itzel Quiroz García, who was a candidate for the Congress of Michoacán's 20th district (South Uruapan) in 2024.[7] They have two children.[8] At the time of Carlos's assassination, his brother, Juan Daniel, was serving as the deputy secretary of the interior for the state of Michoacán.[9]
Remove ads
Political career
Summarize
Perspective
Manzo's first involvement in politics was with the youth branch of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).[6] From 2017 to 2018 he was an auditor with the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) in Michoacán.[10] In the 2018 general election, he competed to represent Michoacán's 9th congressional district (Uruapan) in the Chamber of Deputies as a non-party candidate, but finished with less than 10% of the votes cast in a six-way race.[11]
Manzo stood again for the same district in the 2021 mid-terms as the candidate of the National Regeneration Movement (Morena) and was elected with 41.5% of the vote, beating eight other contenders.[12] During his term in the lower house, he proposed legislation to impose a penalty of between one and four years' incarceration, or a fine of between 180 and 360 times the daily minimum wage, on any person performing negligent discharge into the air; the initiative did not prosper.[13][14] He also served on the standing committees responsible for climate change and sustainability, health, and social security.[15]
On 25 November 2023, Congressman Manzo was detained by the National Guard in Uruapan after he reported that local non-traffic police officers had allegedly attempted to extort a woman traveling in her vehicle. Manzo stated that he was beaten up and was warned to "stop monitoring the police". He was released after residents protested against the National Guard, and his substitute deputy, Esteban Rafael Constantino Magaña, documented Manzo's condition on Facebook. According to Manzo:[16][17]
They beat me and arrested me illegally because they know I have constitutional immunity granted by the people of Uruapan. They don't want us monitoring them because they are stealing from avocado pickers. We're fed up. They threatened to kill me if they saw me patrolling the streets of Uruapan again. I hold the governor of Michoacán, Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla, and General [José Alfredo] Ortega responsible.[16]
Municipal president of Uruapan
Manzo resigned his seat in Congress on 27 February 2024 to compete for the municipal presidency of Uruapan in the 2024 election.[3][10] He originally sought Morena's nomination for the position, but lost to the incumbent, Ignacio Campos Equihua. Having been a critic of Campos's administration, he decided to run as an independent.[6] In the 2 June election, he obtained 66% of the vote in a six-way race and, in September 2024, took office as Uruapan's first independent mayor.[18][19][c]
In the context of the Mexican drug war, Uruapan is known as the "avocado capital of the world", and members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and Cárteles Unidos operate in the area, extorting local crop producers.[20][21] Manzo's administration adopted a hard line against organized crime, based on "direct confrontation".[10] Given the federal government's prioritization of criminal prosecutions over armed confrontations, that earned him the censure of President Claudia Sheinbaum.[18] Among other actions, he spent 50 million pesos (about US$2.6 million) on vehicles for the municipal police. His zero-tolerance strategy towards crime earned him comparisons with Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele, although he rejected the analogy.[22][23]
After a female municipal worker was killed on 21 May 2025, Manzo authorized the municipal police to use deadly force against criminals who attacked the public or resisted arrest. President Sheinbaum said he was wrong and that the rule of law must be upheld. In response, Manzo challenged her to resolve the crisis in the municipality with the federal government's "Hugs, not slugs" policy. "There can be no hugs for criminals," he said, and offered to step aside from his position as mayor if she thought she could resolve the situation "with kind words and calls for surrender" without firing a shot.[24]
In September 2025, following the murder of a municipal police officer, Manzo canceled Independence Day festivities in the municipality – including the traditional re-enactment of the Grito de Dolores and a planned parade – and requested direct support from President Sheinbaum to contain the violence in the area caused by the presence of illegally armed criminal gangs.[25] The federal and state governments deployed 300 members of the security forces to the municipality on 30 September, but they were withdrawn two weeks later.[26] Manzo believed that the support was withdrawn as a consequence of his symbolic closure of the Uruapan cable car construction project being carried out by the state government in the municipality. The following month, he asked the federal government to provide the municipal police with military-grade weapons, including FN Minimi machine guns, to match those used by criminals.[27]
In a June 2025 Mitofsky poll exploring public perceptions of 150 of the country's mayors, Manzo received the 32nd highest approval rating. Although he never confirmed a candidacy, he was widely viewed as a potential candidate for governor in the 2027 state election.[28][29]
Remove ads
Assassination
Summarize
Perspective
On 1 November 2025, Manzo attended the Festival de las Velas in the historic center of Uruapan, a traditional candle-lit Day of the Dead celebration in the city. At approximately 8:10 p.m. CST (UTC−6),[30] while he was with his family, observing the festival decorations and speaking with residents, Manzo was attacked and shot seven times. Three of the bullets struck him in the back and abdomen, the latter wound being the one that proved fatal, as he walked beside his son. He was pronounced dead at a local hospital. He was 40 years old.[31][32][33] Víctor Hugo de la Cruz, a member of the Uruapan municipal council, and one bodyguard were also injured in the attack.[34][23]
At a press conference the following day, federal public security secretary Omar García Harfuch stated that Manzo's assailant had been killed by the security forces and that two other arrests had been made.[34][23][35] The weapon used in the attack, a 9mm Beretta pistol,[20] was later linked to two other incidents that resulted in three deaths and two injuries.[30] Harfuch also noted that Manzo had been under federal protection since December 2024 and that fourteen National Guard soldiers and two vehicles had been assigned to him in May 2025, to complement his security detail of trusted municipal police officers.[36]
Perpetrator
Manzo's killer was identified by the state attorney general on 6 November as a 17-year-old from Paracho, Michoacán.[37] According to the state attorney general, the attacker was under the influence of methamphetamine and tetrahydrocannabinol, and had been reported missing from his home a week earlier.[20]
Government response
City trustee Hilda Flor del Campo Maldonado Medina was named as Manzo's interim successor, while his supporters called for his widow, Grecia Quiroz, to be appointed to complete his term in office.[38][39] Michoacán governor Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla confirmed that Manzo's replacement would be determined by his own independent movement, and a formal proposal to that effect was lodged with the state congress.[40] Quiroz was sworn in as municipal president on 5 November 2025, to serve out the remainder of her husband's term.[41] She vowed to carry on his stance against organized crime.[42]
Quiroz met with President Sheinbaum at the National Palace in Mexico City on 3 November.[40] The following day, Sheinbaum announced the "Michoacán Plan for Peace and Justice", a security plan for the state including the deployment of the National Guard, more federal personnel, and the creation of a special unit at the state prosecutor's office.[43] The plan covers three broad thematic areas: security and justice, economic development with justice, and education and culture for peace. Meetings with the federal security cabinet will be held every two weeks, and an alert system for the state's mayors will be put in place.[44]
Public reactions
Manzo was the seventh municipal president to be killed in Michoacán during the governorship of Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla (a member of Morena elected to a six-year term in 2021) and the country's sixth municipal president killed in 2025.[45][46]
At Manzo's funeral in Uruapan on 2 November, Governor Ramírez Bedolla was received with indignation by a crowd of hundreds of townspeople. Members of the public called him a murderer and demanded justice for the mayor's assassination.[47] The governor's security personnel advised him to withdraw after less than five minutes at the funeral home; Proceso also reported that Grecia Quiroz, Manzo's widow, had allegedly asked him to leave.[26] Thousands of people marched through the streets of Uruapan to accompany Manzo's body to its final resting place. Addressing the crowd at the city's main square, Quiroz called on them to continue defending their country "with tooth and nail".[48]
Protests
A protest march was organized in Morelia, the capital of Michoacán, on 2 November. Demonstrators chanted, "Claudia didn't listen and the government killed him". Later, a contingent – "numbering in the hundreds" – stormed the state government palace.[49] Armed with molotov cocktails, sticks, and stones, the protesters forced the building's main entrance and gained access to the government offices inside. They set fire to some of the furniture, threw other pieces down to the street below, and daubed slogans on the interior and exterior walls.[50] The police deployed tear gas inside the complex to disperse the protesters, and the building was placed under police guard;[51][52] eight people were arrested.[53]
A second march in Morelia was organized by students on 3 November,[54] during which a law student was injured in the eye by a rubber bullet.[55] Additional demonstrations took place in the Michoacán municipalities of Pátzcuaro, Zitácuaro and Apatzingán, with additional complaints condemning the killing of Bernardo Bravo two weeks earlier.[56] In Apatzingán, the state's fourth largest city, protesters forced their way into the municipal palace and set furniture on fire.[57] Grecia Quiroz urged people to avoid violent demonstrations, saying it was not what her husband would have wanted.[58]
A march demanding security and justice – attended, according to the local authorities, by between 70,000 and 80,000 people – was held in Uruapan on 7 November. It was headed by Manzo's grandmother.[59] She mentioned that although she feared for his life, he told her, "I have to save Uruapan. I love it because it's my home. I adore its people".[60] During the demonstration, participants called for the suspension of government and business activities.[61]
Social media users have organized a nationwide protest for 15 November, which will include cities such as Mexico City, La Paz and Cabo San Lucas in Baja California Sur,[62] and Zamora, Michoacán.[63]
Remove ads
See also
- List of politicians killed during the presidency of Claudia Sheinbaum
- Homero Gómez González – manager of El Rosario Monarch Butterfly Preserve in Michoacán, killed in 2020
- Hipólito Mora – founder of a vigilante self-defense group in Michoacán in response to cartel activity, killed in 2023
Notes
- In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Manzo and the second or maternal family name is Rodríguez.
- The 2024 general election also saw independent politician Guadalupe Mendoza Arias returned to Congress for Michoacán's 9th: the only candidate to win a seat without the backing of any of the country's registered political parties.[19] Both she and Manzo belonged to the Movimiento del sombrero ("Hat Movement"), a local grouping that also won two seats in the state congressional election held on the same day.[6]
Remove ads
References
Wikiwand - on
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.
Remove ads