I think Mexican cartels are well past just having ex police and ex military members and are effectively have the status of "monopoly on force" in some regions.
Yeah it really is time for the Mexican federal government to start training elite military forces to take out these guys and treat them as full on terrorists and kill on sight orders. War is ugly.
I’m sure that’s what they’ve been doing. And it works to some extent. The problem is that often times those elite forces find out there is more money to be made either working with the cartels, or replacing them altogether.
Here's CJNG showing off some of their troops:
https://old.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/ht8bx7/this...
Here's one of them not only with a police escort but happy to show it:
https://old.reddit.com/r/NarcoFootage/comments/mdq35m/cjng_o...