Mexican authorities vow action in border city gripped with fear
80 agents sent to probe killing of police chief, but some wary residents are skeptical of success
By IOAN GRILLO

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/printstory. ... ld/3220777



Houston Chronicle Foreign Service
RESOURCES
TWO CITIES FEEL THE HEAT

•The relentless violence has taken a toll on residents of Nuevo Laredo. But across the U.S. border, Laredo also feels the economic impact and tension brought on by warring Mexican drug factions. PAGE A25

NUEVO LAREDO, MEXICO - The Mexican government has deployed 80 federal agents to this border city to lead the investigation into the brazen killing of the police chief, authorities said Friday.

A funeral was held for the father of three, who was slain just hours after taking the oath of office.

Hundreds of soldiers, paramilitary police and undercover agents scoured the city, searching for information about the assassins who shot Alejandro Dominguez, 52, to death Wednesday night.

In Mexico City, a spokesman said President Vicente Fox's government and the United States should work together to fight the drug cartels.

"We need to use all the resources available in both countries to fight organized crime," Ruben Aguilar said. "It is a fight that needs communication and bilateral action."

Aguilar, who did not specify the bilateral action Mexico had in mind, also said attacks on police officers do not signal that the government has been overpowered by the narcotics gangs.

"This is a long-term war we are fighting," Aguilar said. "It's a long process. There is no magic."

Fox has pledged to wage "the mother of all battles" against the country's powerful drug cartels.

Government officials say the violence along the U.S. border and in northern Mexico has resulted from a crackdown in which major traffickers have been killed, jailed or forced underground. More than 44,000 trafficking suspects have been jailed in the last four years, officials say. In the vacuum, drug gangsters have fought each other for turf and smuggling routes into Texas.

But some residents of Nuevo Laredo expressed doubt that federal agents would ever catch the killers of Dominguez, who is one of more than 60 people, including six other police officers, killed here this year.

"We a hear a lot of talk about major investigations," said Higinio Ibarra, head of a Nuevo Laredo shopkeepers association, "but we never see anyone behind bars."

Few arrests have been made in the slayings, and none of the police officers' killings has been solved.


FBI equivalent
Nuevo Laredo federal prosecutor Manuel Balmori said the 80 agents who arrived Thursday and Friday were attached to the Federal Agency of Investigation, the country's equivalent of the FBI.

"These are special forces," Balmori said. "They are trained to deal with drug gangs and other organized criminals. Some work under cover."

They joined about 700 federal police and soldiers who arrived in March to quell drug-related violence that had been raging as the Sinaloa and Gulf cartels battled for control of Nuevo Laredo. The city, along with its sister city, Laredo, has emerged as a key transit portal for shipments of goods.

In his first public statement since the murder, Mayor Daniel Peña said Friday that the police chief's killing should force the federal government to address the deteriorating security situation in northern Mexico.

"This is the final drop of water that has made the jug overflow," Peña said. "Now the public is going to see some real action from the government."

Peña would not speculate on the motives behind the chief's killing, which investigators have said has the hallmarks of a drug cartel killing.


Miffed by U.S. comments
But he denounced a statement by the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Tony Garza, that the chief's murder and other killings had become a major concern for the United States.

Peña said Garza may have been trying to deflect attention from drug-use problems in the United States.

"You don't know if (Garza) is making declarations to escape responsibility for the American drug consumption and the gangs they have transporting drugs within their country," he said. "Drugs are not being transported (around the United States) by the Internet."


Police chief mourned
Dominguez was cremated after a funeral Mass attended by friends and family members. Several mourners said they did not want to speak to reporters out of fear that they could become the victims of a drug-gang killing.

"The violence has put a cloak of fear on this city," said Raymundo Ramos, head of the Nuevo Laredo Human Rights Committee. "Everyone is scared they could be the next statistic."

Nuevo Laredo remained without a police chief Friday. Peña said no candidate had applied.

ibgrillo@yahoo.com