Pena Nieto Says Vigilantes Are in Check, Authorities Fear Spread of Violence Out of Tierra Caliente, Michoacan

While a tense week of violent confrontation has been happening in the Tierra Caliente region of the state of Michoacan, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto told reporters on Wednesday that the armed vigilante groups are not growing despite the recent news reports to the contrary.

At a travel stop in Canada, the president and his staff said that the federal government has sent between 4,500 and 4,800 troops into Tierra Caliente to diffuse the standoff between the "autodensas" and the Knights Templar cartel.

Some vigilantes are cooperating with the government forces in the area, attempting to identify and oust cartel figures. However, despite a tense peace that has come with the arrival of the government troops, the vigilantes say they are still not giving up their weapons.

Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the state, authorities are reporting the discovery of two children and three adults found dead on the side of a rural dirt road. The children are approximately one month and two years old. The children and the adults have not been identified. Among Mexican authorities, there is some concern that the escalation of violence against the cartels in Michoacan might have what is known as a "cucuracha effect," causing the cartels to simply scurry off to other parts of Mexico and spreading the violence and criminal activities with them. Following the crackdown in the western side of Michoacan, there were attacks against OXXO convenience stores on the eastern side of the state and in the bordering state of Hidalgo.

On the other side of Mexico at least some of that violence is already occurring on its own. In other sad news out of Mexico, former Voice Mexico contentant Gibran David Martiz Diaz was found dead inside a home after a gunfight between the alleged kidnappers and authorities. Police are saying that the singer, along with an unidentified minor, had been dead since before the first shots were exchanged in the Mexican city of Veracruz.