The U.S. State Department issued shelter-in-place warnings across multiple Mexican states after the killing of a Jalisco cartel leader.
DALLAS, Texas — Juanita Cano stepped outside her apartment Sunday to an eerie silence. The gates to her building, normally open, were shut. The streets, usually filled with tourists and locals, were empty.
“Normally you would see an influx of people walking, but there’s nothing,” said Cano, a Dallas resident four weeks into a trip to the coastal Mexican town of San Patricio in Jalisco.
She had been told to shelter in place.
The warning came after the Mexican army killed Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho,” the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and one of the country’s most-wanted drug lords. Oseguera Cervantes was wounded Sunday during a military operation in Tapalpa, Jalisco, roughly a two-hour drive southwest of Guadalajara, and died while being flown to Mexico City, according to a statement from Mexico’s Defense Department. Four others were killed at the scene, three more were wounded and later died and two were arrested. Troops also seized armored vehicles, rocket launchers and other arms. Three members of the armed forces were wounded and are receiving medical treatment.
In what authorities and locals described as retaliation, violence spread quickly across the region. Video circulating on social media showed cars engulfed in flames in a Costco parking lot and buses torched on the streets of Puerto Vallarta. Plumes of smoke filled the sky over several cities.
“Even if we wanted to leave, we can’t leave,” Cano said. “But we can hear the sirens of the police officers.”
Cano said taxi and bus service had been suspended and that travel on highways was particularly dangerous. With no easy way out, she has stocked up on a week’s worth of groceries and water and is relying on her neighbors for updates on the situation.
“The main thing is to stay off the highway because the highways are very, very dangerous right now,” she said.
Despite the unrest spreading through the state, Cano said locals had told her that her coastal town was unlikely to see direct violence.
“I was told that this was a vacation spot for some of the people in the organization, so they’re not going to damage this place,” she said.
Still, Cano said her biggest concern was the potential disruption of basic infrastructure.
“Will they cut our internet? Because she says they have a tendency of doing that,” she said.
El Mencho’s cartel had been among the most powerful and dangerous criminal organizations in Mexico. In 2024, the U.S. Department of State offered a $15 million reward for information leading to his capture, citing the cartel’s role in flooding the United States with cocaine, methamphetamine and fentanyl.
For now, Cano says she is taking her cues from the locals around her.
“I’m trying to process it like the locals are, where they’re like, ‘if you mind your own business, nothing bad will happen to you,'” she said.