8 people killed in northern Mexico
By OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ, Associated Press Writer
Fri Mar 30, 6:14 PM ET


MONTERREY, Mexico - Gunmen killed two police officers and six other people in less than 48 hours, the latest victims in a wave of drug-related violence in northern Mexico, police said Friday.

Investigators say the Sinaloa Cartel is fighting the Gulf Cartel for billion-dollar drug smuggling routes into the United States. The battle has led to beheadings, grenade attacks and execution-style killings across Mexico and the violence has taken a particularly heavy toll on police.

The latest killings were in the northern Mexican metropolis of Monterrey in Nuevo Leon state, a hot spot for violence where 42 people have been killed since Jan. 1.

Deputy state Attorney General Aldo Fasci Zuazua said Thursday that the killings in Nuevo Leon state are part of a "national problem."

"Without a doubt this is part of a strategy by organized crime to terrorize the population," he said.

Nuevo Leon state officer Milton Pacheco, his son, Jesus, and an unidentified man were gunned down in a used car lot Thursday afternoon by assailants who arrived in three sport utility vehicles, police said.

Pacheco was the 16th officer killed this year in the Monterrey area, about 135 miles from McAllen, Texas.

On Wednesday, gunmen killed police Commander Ramiro Calderon as he was driving through a residential area of Monterrey.

Four hours after Pacheco's killing, assailants in a pickup truck shot at a group of men outside a house in the Monterrey suburb of San Nicolas de los Garza, killing three and injuring another three, one critically.

Alejandro Garza, director of state police investigations, said assailants fired more than 200 rounds at the men.

In a separate attack, gunmen killed an unidentified man while he drove in a pickup truck in the Monterrey suburb of Apodaca.

Nuevo Leon state authorities say drug smugglers may be moving to Monterrey from the border city of Nuevo Laredo to hide from rivals looking to kill them after a turf battle last year left hundreds of people dead in the city across from Laredo, Texas.
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