The moral of the Mexico Mormon massacre: Don’t be stupid

The moral of the Mexico Mormon massacre: Don’t be stupid

The tiny little village of La Mora in the Mexican state of Sonora was thrust into the headlines last week when nine members of a fundamentalist Mormon polygamist cult were killed by one of the local drug cartels.

Let’s be clear about this: The victims, women and children, did not deserve to die.

Murder is never the answer.

But despite the histrionics of the president, who never fails to take potshots at his neighbors to the south and offered to send U.S. troops to Mexico to do battle with the cartels, there is more to this story.

This colony of polygamists was founded about 100 years ago when the fundamentalists fled to Mexico when The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gave up the practice of multiple marriages. The revelation to ditch polygamy was met with much resistance among fundamentalist who viewed it as a sellout to the United States government, which would only allow statehood to Utah if the Mormons abandoned polygamy.

Some fled to rural parts of Utah while others made the border run.

The numbers were relatively small as they set up communities in mostly Sonora and Chihuahua. Today, about 3,000 polygamists, who claim membership in The Church of the Firstborn, formed by the LeBaron family, are reportedly in that region while other polygamist cults, including the FLDS, have set up shop in other parts of the country.

The attack last week was aimed at the LeBaron family, which already had a bloody history traceable to northern Utah, as well as at Mexico when feuds over leadership of the group exploded into violence.

The modern-day group has been no exception.

Ervil LeBaron was convicted in Mexico in 1974 for killing his brother. He was released, however, over a technicality many believe was discovered after a handsome bribe was paid. A year later, he ordered the killing of Bob Simons, a fellow polygamist who worked to convert Native Americans. In 1977, he ordered the killing of Rulon C. Allred, who led a rival cult in Utah called the Apostolic United Brethren. Rena Chynoweth, LeBaron’s 13th wife, and his stepdaughter Ramona Marston are believed to have carried out the murder order. That same year, LeBaron is suspected of ordering the murder of his pregnant 17-year-old daughter, Rebecca, who wanted to leave the church.

LeBaron was finally extradited to the United States where he was convicted of Allred’s death and sentenced to life imprisonment at the Utah State Prison in Draper, where he died a year later at 56.

The LeBarons also had their share of confrontations with the Mexican nationals.

The word on the street is that they were competing with the cartels, that their agricultural endeavors mimicked those of the Mexican dealers, and that in some instances they actually participated in the cartel business of cultivating the illicit cannabis fields.

They have accumulated a vast amount of money over the years, and leaders live a lavish lifestyle in large homes that to many seem beyond the reach of successful cotton and grain growers in the area.

Violence between the polygamists and locals escalated, particularly in recent years. Church leaders, whose followers tracked suspected cartel members, claim they were simply trying to enforce the law against the cartels in the wild and remote areas of Sonora and Chihuahua, where the nearest law is roughly 100 miles away.

Ten years ago, one of the cartels abducted Eric LeBaron, a 16-year-old cult member who was held for a reported $1 million ransom. He was eventually released, even though church officials deny paying a ransom. Shortly after that, Meredith Romney was kidnapped and held for ransom, which this time was paid. Romney is a cousin of Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, whose family settled in the Chihuahua region when the polygamists, including his grandparents, fled the U.S.

When news of the shooting broke last week, it was originally tamped down.

It wasn’t clear, some Mexican authorities said at first, if there was cartel involvement or not.

Then, word was put out that it was an unfortunate coincidence of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, that the SUVs the women were driving were mistaken for a rival cartel.

A lone suspect was reportedly taken into custody fairly early, a sort of Lee Harvey Oswald patsy who was fashioned, it seemed, to take the fall— except that witnesses and evidence show that there were multiple shooters.

The bottom line is that it doesn’t take Perry Mason to figure out what happened here: It was clearly a cartel hit, an act of vengeance of some sort, either for being burned on some dope deal or in retaliation for harassment.

Again, that does not absolve the shooters or justify the killings.

Cult members or not, they did not deserve this fate. Nobody does.

But I guarantee that the attacks were not unprovoked, at least in the cartel world.

It is important to remember when you see headlines about Americans being killed in Mexico that the cartel has bigger business to do other than randomly kill gringos. They have their hands full already with rival gangs and are under scrutiny from federales and military leaders who are not on the pad.

In other words, they are not simply going out to kill for the thrill of blood sport.

Somebody burned them on a dope deal, somebody tried to disrupt their business, or somebody tried to blackmail them. Otherwise, they don’t give a damn about what the gringos are doing here because they realize that the infusion of American dollars is good for the Mexican economy.

Just like the Mafia gangs, they have their own code, and these killings carry all the trappings of the rule that payback is rarely aimed at those who actually provoke the violence. Instead, the gangs will go after the loved ones, a much more painful method of revenge.

These cartels are sophisticated operations. These aren’t just street thugs hammering it out.

For example, when numerous states started full legalization of cannabis, the cartels started moving less cannabis product while upping the tonnage of heroin, meth, and fentanyl it shipped north.

They understand the market — that Americans have an almost insatiable appetite for drugs of every kind. They fully grasp the old supply-and-demand rule of capitalism. And they justify the killings because of the billions of dollars on the table. It will be interesting to see how they manage when Mexico goes to full legalization of recreational cannabis use in the next few weeks.

Again, I do not condone violence. But those are integral to understanding the explosion of violence that has racked today’s Mexico and the unforgiving code of those involved in the drug trade.

The Mafia employed that strategy successfully for many years in the United States, creating an empire that has for the most part gone fairly legit with investments in respectable business operations. It wasn’t always so, of course, as history reminds us of the treacherous wars between the Mafia and cops and the rival sectors of the mob caught up in power, product, and turf wars.

It’s the same in today’s Mexico, where the cartels are involved in open warfare with each other and their straight enemies or partners who may have not been so loyal or the idiots who think they can outsmart them.

The lesson, of course, is that if you don’t want to be in their crosshairs, don’t do something stupid, a lesson seemingly lost on the polygamist cults.

You know what you’re getting into when you hop into bed with these guys, so don’t act surprised or cry foul when something goes horribly wrong.

As far as the United States is concerned, it should shut up, mind its own business, and clean up its own backyard before trying to interfere in Mexico. We can’t even contain our own Congressional cartel, let alone the drug lords down south.

Peace.

The viewpoints expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Independent.

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