Between Bullets and Ambushes: INEGI Names Tamaulipas the Most Dangerous State for a Police Officer

Tamaulipas is the most dangerous state for a police officer. This is where most police killings occur, and their fatality rate is already reflected in the statistics from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI).

According to the 2024-2025 National Census of Federal and State Public Security, this northeastern state is where the highest number of confrontations and attacks by criminal groups against federal and state agents occur. In 2024, 240 encounters were recorded; 17 were against the National Guard and 223 against Tamaulipas police officers.

That same year, of 29 State Guard members who died, only six died of natural causes; 16 were victims of homicide (13 of them intentional); six died in accidents, and one died by suicide.

The most dangerous area to be a police officer in isn’t just a statistical issue: it’s about lives being snuffed out in the midst of a fight that, in most cases, is unequal, because criminals have better weapons and technology.

Unequal Force

In San Fernando, a municipality located in the north of the state, three officers who earned their living by exposing it were killed in the middle of a day of gunfire, and another didn’t even have the chance to defend himself, as his patrol car was hit by a drone carrying explosives.

In those events, which occurred in November of last year, one of the victims was a young female police officer, while five of her colleagues were injured in a series of clashes on the highway to Reynosa.

Border cities have been embroiled in numerous episodes of violence perpetrated by drug cartels operating in the area.

The Tamaulipas Public Security Secretariat expressed its recognition and solidarity with Berenice Bernal Ávila, highlighting her courage and commitment to the line of duty.

San Fernando is the municipality where, during the worst period of violence in Tamaulipas, 72 migrants—many of them Central Americans—were massacred, and bus passengers were killed after being forced off the bus by criminals and forced to fight to the death with sledgehammers.