11 slaying victims found over 3 days

Hundreds of officers return from training

By Omar Millán González 2:00 a.m. December 30, 2008

TIJUANA — After relative quiet for a week, deadly violence returned to Tijuana as authorities logged 11 killings in three days and an assault on a state forensic office.

The attacks coincided with the return of several hundred municipal police officers to the four districts that make up the east side of the city. They had been withdrawn from patrol duties for 40 days while they received training from the Mexican military.

The state Attorney General's Office provided yesterday what has become a familiar accounting of multiple slayings. The killings took place mainly over the weekend and mostly on the east side, where much of the violence has occurred in the past three months.

Over the weekend, two bodies were found in the trunk of a car abandoned in the northeast neighborhood of Buenos Aires; gunmen traveling in an SUV opened fire on a group of men on Fourth Street downtown, killing two and wounding five; two people were shot to death in colonia Obrera, on the west side; a man was shot to death in the eastern neighborhood of Empleado Postal; and one man was shot dead and another wounded while at a taco stand in colonia Las Huertas, also in eastern Tijuana.
In addition, gunmen sprayed gunfire at two places Sunday, although no injuries were reported. The targets were a tavern called Bar Ugly and the state office of investigators who analyze weapons and munitions.
Yesterday, three people were shot to death and left on public thoroughfares in separate attacks on the east side.

The state Attorney General's Office said the latest killings pushed the death toll this year to 829 in the city, where drug traffickers are battling to control the lucrative trade to the United States.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps have restricted travel to Mexico for service members because of the drug-related violence.
Enlisted troops up to the grade of E-6 must have a “liberty chitâ€