Thread: 5 women killed in Mexico near border; 7 men in capital

5 women killed in Mexico near border; 7 men in capital

Maquiladora workers shot on factory buses; young men killed in gritty neighborhood


MEXICO CITY — As common as shootings have become in Mexico, two deadly attacks Thursday stunned this nation for their brazenness: Five women leaving work at a border maquiladora were shot dead, while seven young men were gunned down in a gritty neighborhood of Mexico City.

The shootings follow several mass killings in less than a week. All have occurred in different parts of the country and appear unrelated.

Gunmen opened fire on three company buses in Caseta, a town near Ciudad Juarez along the U.S. border, killing five women and injuring 14 others, local media reported.

"We have not seen an attack of this nature," Adrian Sanchez, a spokesman for the Ciudad Juarez police department, was quoted by the El Paso Times as saying. "We will have to wait to see what the investigation uncovers as to who did it. We can only give our condolences to the families of the people who lost their lives."

The gunmen reportedly boarded the buses and started shooting indiscriminately.

The workers were leaving Eagle Ottawa, a U.S.-based company that makes leather for vehicle interiors.

In Mexico City, the men in their late teens and early 20s were hanging out together on a street when the gunmen arrived, Mexico City Attorney General Miguel Angel Mancera said in an interview with the Televisa network. He said angry words were exchanged, and the gunmen opened fire.

The victims were said to be members of a drug gang that had been battling with another group in Tepito, a working-class neighborhood just north of Mexico City's colonial center.

Drug dealing is rampant there, but Mancera said there also have been problems with disputes among carjacking gangs.

"It is a complicated zone, a very delicate zone," Mancera said. "We would like to reassure the population that we are going to find those responsible."

15 killed at car wash
The shootings occurred a day after gunmen killed 15 people at a car wash in Tepic, a city in the Pacific coast state of Nayarit.

Over the weekend, gunmen massacred 14 young people at a birthday party in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, and 13 recovering addicts were killed in an attack on a drug rehab center in Tijuana.

The first three shootings occurred in disputed drug trafficking territory where massacres, beheadings and shootouts occur frequently.

While crime is a major problem in Mexico City, cartel-style violence has been less common.

Still, shootings between cartel gunmen and security forces have occasionally erupted during operations to arrest kingpins in the Mexico City area, one of the world's largest metropolises when an estimated 20 million people.

The most recent was the Aug. 20 capture of U.S.-born Edgar "La Barbie" Valdez Villarreal, a suspected drug lord who was allegedly fighting for control of Morelos, a state that borders the capital. While the arrest of "La Barbie" on the outskirts of Mexico City was peaceful, a shooting on a highway of the city that day killed one of his suspected accomplices.

Disputes between "La Barbie" and his rivals have also been blamed for several bodies found dumped in some neighborhoods of the capital this year.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39892108/ns ... -americas/

On Tuesday Nov.2 we Americans will stand up to our corrupt gov. we will take back our country. I truly hope the rest of the world watches closely because we did it without riots, we did it without violence, we did it without racism and fear, we did it because we had to. You countries watch America closely this Tuesday so you'll know how to do the same in your own countries. It's hard but it can be done. America will be living proof of that. Thank you and have a nice day.