[11][12][13] Two weeks later the Mexican government initiated efforts to control the escalating violence in Michoacán by deploying the Army against both the cartels and the self-defense militias.

Initially, a video of a badly wounded Mireles was published in which he urged the self-defense groups to lay down their arms and cooperate with the Army.

[citation needed] On 27 June 2014, Mireles was arrested with 45 other people in Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán by Mexican authorities for violating Mexico's Federal Law of Firearms and Explosives.

In a message released in 2015, he stated: "Not only Manuel Mireles is innocent, but all self-defense members that had to carry a weapon to defend their home, their family, their property, because there was no one to help them.

In a video statement posted on social media, he said, "I want to apologize, through this message, to the Mexican government and its official and unofficial institutions, and its nation-wide structures, for disrespecting them with words or actions, for offending them with my omissions and civil disobedience."

[24] On 11 May 2017 after almost 3 years in prison, a federal judge granted Mireles parole after he paid a bond of 30,000 pesos and agreed not to leave the state of Michoacán or the country.