(NewsNation) — Montserrat Caballero, the mayor of the Mexican border city of Tijuana, right across from San Diego, California, has been receiving threats from the drug cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación.
These threats drew the attention of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who promised during a news conference last Thursday to protect Caballero from any possible threats of violence.
“Montserrat is not alone, she has all our backing,” López Obrador said, according to Border Report. “This woman who has been getting threats lately, who runs that border city, is a migrant from Oaxaca. She’s an extraordinary woman, humble, hardworking, honest.”
On May 17, a member of the mayor’s security team was targeted when a gunman in an SUV with California license plates opened fire on a vehicle her bodyguard was in.
The bodyguard had been outside of a beauty salon that was being inspected moments before Caballero was set to arrive, Border Report wrote. The San-Diego Tribune reported the guard only suffered injuries related to the truck’s window being impacted.
Authorities later discovered the SUV and recovered from it three long loaded guns and several bulletproof vets.
According to Tijuana police, three people were arrested in connection to this incident. A motive has not yet been revealed.
Following the assassination attempt on the mayor’s bodyguard, two ‘Narco-banners’ popped up at two separate locations in Tijuana with threats to Tijuana’s chief of police and the head of his department’s special forces. The banners were addressed to Caballero and signed by the Jalisco Nueva Generación.
Caballero blamed Ricardo Iván Carpio Sánchez, Baja California’s Attorney General, for the lack of security in Tijuana.
The mayor took to social media to say she would hold Carpio Sánchez responsible should anything happen to her, her family or members of her team.
At a news conference, Carpio Sánchez said he respected Caballero’s opinion, but added that “the city’s security is the responsibility of the local government,” Border Report wrote. Carpio Sánchez also said he reached out to the mayor to see if she had any information that could help officials with their investigation.