Morelia grenade attacks
# Morelia grenade attacks

The Morelia grenade attacks took place on 15 September 2008 on the occasion of the Mexican Independence Day anniversary when thousands of people were gathered in the Plaza Melchor Ocampo, the main square of the Mexican city of Morelia, Michoacán. Shortly after the Grito in that city, led by Governor Leonel Godoy, two grenades were thrown into the crowds, killing at least eight people and injuring more than 100.

## The attacks

The first blast was reported shortly after 23:00, on the Plaza itself, as the governor was intoning the traditional vivas to the heroes of the nation; the second took place some minutes later, in a sidestreet located four blocks away.

Two further explosions were reported in the immediate aftermath: one at 01:00, leaving the city along the highway to Salamanca, Guanajuato; and a fourth at 01:15, in the Santa María district in the vicinity of Morelia's bandera monumental.

## Suspects

The police have blamed drug cartels for the grenade attacks, specifically the La Familia Michoacana gang. La Familia denied it and instead blamed Los Zetas. A week after the attacks, police from SIEDO and the Federal Investigations Agency arrested three men of the Los Zetas gang accused of throwing the grenades. However, the suspects were proven guilty for eleven years until 2019, when a federal corrections judge proved them innocent. They were proven innocent because they had not been present in Morelia the night of September 15,2008 and had been subject to kidnapping and false imprisonment by orders of Servando Gomez Martinez, José de Jesús Méndez Vargas,and Nazario Moreno. They had been present in the city of Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán and had been taken to an unincorporated town in the Apatzingan municipality. They were tortured and tied up to a tree until agents from the Procuraduría General de la República came, who were paid 10,000,000 pesos to arrest them.

## Context

Morelia is the home town of President Felipe Calderón of the PAN, although the state of Michocán has traditionally been controlled by the opposition PRI and PRD. Michoacán has, since Calderón took office, been one of the federal government's focal points in its anti-drug efforts and initial suspicions indicated that the atrocity was probably the work of the drugs cartels, either part of a battle for territory or as a warning to the government. Condemnation of the incident across the country was unanimous, as such tactics of the drug lords in attacking random citizen congregations was unprecedented in Mexican history.

