EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Mexican authorities have arrested a Juarez municipal police officer in connection with the killing of nine American women and children on Nov. 4, 2019, on a highway in the northern state of Sonora.
Jacinto Galdiño Peña, aka “El Monster,” was charged with femicide immediately after his arrest in Juarez on Sunday and flown to Mexico City to stand trial, federal officials reported.
Galdiño had a detention hearing on Wednesday. Prosecutors alleged he was a sicario, or hitman, for La Linea drug cartel and participated in a gathering of 100 La Linea and allied Caborca cartel operatives a few days prior to the massacre, Milenio reported.
La Linea at the time was fighting a Sinaloa cartel cell for control of a smuggling route leading from the Sonora-Chihuahua border to the U.S. border in Arizona, prosecutors have said. The gunmen allegedly mistook three vehicles carrying members of the LeBaron, Miller, Johnson and Langford families for vehicles used by Los Salazar, the rival gang.
“We are planning a march in Juarez to protest the city hiring sicarios with taxpayer money who are capable of killing civilians in cold blood,” Julian LeBaron, a cousin to some of the victims, told Border Report news partner ProVideo. “We will not be complicit by remaining silent.”
Galdiño is the second known Mexican law enforcement officer arrested in connection with the killings. Former Janos, Mexico, police chief Fidel Alejandro Villegas was arrested six weeks after the massacre and is serving a 15-year prison sentence in Mexico on an organized crime conviction.
Mexican authorities have told relatives that 36 people have been arrested and 12 others have pending arrest warrants in the still-ongoing investigations.
LeBaron said the involvement of police officers in the massacre points to collusion between criminals and the government.
“It is impossible all of these actors can operate in the state (Chihuahua) without institutional complicity. We know there was complicity at the time between the assassins” and the state government, LeBaron told ProVideo.
As far as Galdiño, LeBaron said the Juarez municipal police should have done a better job of checking his background.
Municipal police officials said the officer had a clean disciplinary record since his hiring in September 2022. They said Chihuahua state authorities are the ones responsible for doing drug and psychological exams of applicants and periodic “trust” checks after employment.
ProVideo in Juarez, Mexico, contributed to this report.
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