Legal director of Nuevo León Congress shot dead

The legal director of the Congress of the Mexican state of Nuevo León – Ricardo Flores Suárez – was shot to death this past Monday night in the municipality of San Nicolás de los Garza, in the Monterrey metropolitan area. This has been confirmed by the Attorney General’s Office of Nuevo León in a statement, which notes that two other people were injured during the attack: a 38-year-old man and a 40-year-old woman.

Flores Suárez, 45, was killed on a soccer field just after 11:00 p.m., when he was attacked by an armed man who was travelling in a car. The assailant opened fire on him near the sports center’s food stands, according to local media reports. The authorities have confirmed that they found small bullet casings at the site of the murder, but they haven’t released details about how many suspects they are looking for. They have said that the investigation is in progress.

Before occupying the position of legal director for the state legislature, Flores Suárez was a federal deputy between 2018 and 2021 for the National Action Party (PAN). The politician belonged to the center-right political party since the beginning of the 2000s. Some Mexican media outlets have linked him with the San Nicolás Group – a political branch of the PAN, considered to be the oldest and most powerful in the party. It has governed the municipality where Flores Suárez was killed for more than three decades. In the state legislature, his work was essential, since all the legal matters of the legislative body reached his desk.

The crime has occurred amidst a very tense situation in local politics. Governor Samuel García – of the center-left Citizen’s Movement – has been at odds with Nuevo León’s legislative chamber since his term began. The opposition retains an absolute majority in the legislature, with the PAN and the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) holding two-thirds of the seats. The conflict has escalated to the point that the executive and the legislative branch have been attempting to sabotage each other’s work.

On Monday – hours before the assassination – Samuel García railed against the Congress of Nuevo León, accusing it of hindering the economic development of the state. He called the members of the opposition “corrupt bandits.” At a press conference, he said that “the day we get these vultures out of Nuevo León, we’ll become Texas.”

The state legislature gave a conference on Tuesday morning to discuss what had occurred. Meanwhile, Daniel Carrillo – the mayor of San Nicolás, where the crime took place – issued a statement, giving his condolences to the Flores Suárez family. “A partner in triumphs and battles,” the post on social media read, “you will live on in our hearts.” The PAN’s national leadership also expressed regret about the news: “How sad to hear about the passing of Ricardo Flores, a great friend and fellow PAN member from Nuevo León,”  wrote Marko Cortés – the party’s president – on Twitter. Governor García has still not given a public statement about the homicide.

Violence in Mexico has escalated in recent years. This past June was the most violence month of the year, according to the Secretariat of Security and Civilian Protection, a cabinet-level federal agency. Two months ago, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador acknowledged that the number of homicides registered in his six-year term – which ends in December of 2024 – already exceeds those of previous governments. The state of Nuevo León certainly isn’t left out of those troubling figures: insecurity has been one of the consequences of the climate of confrontation that the state is experiencing.

Local deputy Waldo Fernández – of MORENA, the national ruling party – tells  EL PAÍS that “for many years” the situation in Nuevo León wasn’t as severe as it is today. Recently, the presence of organized crime has gained ground and a significant increase in crimes is being reported by the citizenry. Additionally, he notes, it’s difficult to deal with the crisis, due to the lack of coordination between the security forces. This is due to the feuding between political factions. “This [issues] need to be resolved in order to give citizens security,” he laments.

Senator Indira Kempis – from the Citizen’s Movement, the same party as the governor of Nuevo León – has also criticized the governing crisis in the aftermath of the murder. “The murder of the former legal director of the Nuevo León Congress, Ricardo Flores, is a sign of the state of emergency in which we are living in NL,” he wrote in a tweet. “Irresponsible politicians who incite hatred [are as well],” he added in another.

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