“Better Them Crying in Their House Than us Crying in Ours”: the Fall of the Leader of the “Anti-Government Ranch”

What would you do if abandonment by the authorities forced you to create your own laws? But that rebellion ended in tragedy. In Tonalá, Jalisco—on the outskirts of Guadalajara—an informal settlement demonstrated just how far a forgotten community might go. 

In 2009, nearly 50 families paid 30,000 pesos for land in San Juan Corral, only to be defrauded by a fake developer. Because they lacked official property deeds, government agencies denied them water and electricity, labeling them squatters. That was when Antonio Pierro—known as “Don Toño,” a rubble collector with tactical training—stepped up to organize the neighbors. 

Through weekly dues of 20 and later 80 pesos, the community hired machinery to dig septic tanks, ran hoses to the water mains, and purchased utility poles and an illicit transformer. With pride and defiance toward the state, Toño named the settlement the “Anti-Government Ranch” on Google Maps, but their resistance went beyond basic utilities. 

Fed up with crime and a total lack of police patrols, neighbors put up banners warning: “Thief: if we catch you, we’ll lynch you. We don’t call the police.” They acquired 9mm, .22, and .38 caliber weapons, installed a closed-circuit camera system, and coordinated night patrols via text message. For Don Toño, the ranch was an autonomous territory—but the dream of self-defense crumbled in July 2017 when a video of a lynching went viral. 

Neighbors had stripped and beaten a man who turned out to have an intellectual disability. The State Attorney General’s Office opened an investigation, and the community became divided. While one group preferred to negotiate the legalization of infrastructure works with the local government, Toño dug in his heels, adopting a radical stance that cost him his leadership, his share of influence, and public support. 

The fatal outcome unfolded on the night of June 29, 2020. After months of disputes over neighborhood contributions, Toño got into a shootout with a neighbor—an off-duty police officer—and shot him repeatedly with a .22-caliber weapon, killing him. 

Toño fled in his car and has remained a fugitive from justice ever since. Today, the settlement is known as San José del Corral; it has official electricity meters, yet it lives under the shadow of the cartels. Do you think taking the law into one’s own hands is justifiable in the face of state abandonment?

Source: Milenio