Thread: AZ Border:4 killed, 6 injured in Nogales shootout

4 killed, 6 injured in Nogales shootout
Assassination suspect is held in Sonora battle
By Brady McCombs
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 11.05.2008
One Mexican police officer and three organized-crime gunmen were killed during an overnight shootout in Nogales, Sonora, authorities said.
Five state police officers and one federal agent were injured during the shootout that lasted about two hours Monday night into Tuesday morning, according to a news release from the Sonora Attorney General's Office.
During the gunbattle, officials captured a man who later confessed to participating in the ambush and killing of the director of Sonora's state police, Juan Manuel Pavón Félix, on Sunday night at the Marqués de Cima Hotel in central Nogales.
This latest gunbattle took place in Colonia Kennedy, a wealthy neighborhood in central Nogales. Authorities seized 13 rifles, three grenades, six handguns and two vehicles, the press release said.
Law-enforcement officers were out Monday night looking for the suspects in Sunday's assassination of Pavón, the press release said. When they spotted them, the suspects fired, setting off the gunbattle.
El Imparcial newspaper in Sonora reported that during the shootout, law-enforcement officers mistakenly shot up a house in Colonia Kennedy that had a family inside.
The gunbattle is the latest chapter in the bloody battle going on in Nogales, Sonora, between drug cartels and law enforcement.
There were 76 homicides recorded in Nogales through September, the latest figures available, surpassing the 2007 total of 52 and more than doubling the 2006 total of 35. Most of the killing has been attributed to feuding drug cartels.
The bloodshed landed Nogales for the first time on the U.S. State Department's new "travel alert" issued Oct. 14 alongside notoriously dangerous cities such as Ciudad Juarez, Tijuana and Nuevo Laredo. The alert — which cautions U.S. citizens about ongoing issues but doesn't instruct them not to travel in Mexico — mentions Nogales as one of the cities that "recently experienced public shootouts during daylight hours in shopping centers and other public venues."
On Oct. 23, state and federal police shot and killed 10 gunmen during a rolling gunbattle in Nogales.
http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/265734

Eight more bodies in TJ, including a state police agent

UNION-TRIBUNE

2:39 p.m. November 5, 2008

TIJUANA – Eight new victims of the region's continuing violence were reported Wednesday by the Baja California Attorney General's Office, including a state police agent, two decapitated victims and four whose bodies were found on an unpaved road in an eastern section of the city.

The Baja California state agent, Marco Cardenas Carrasco, was killed about 8:30 a.m. Wednesday while driving near the intersection of two major boulevards in eastern Tijuana. The agent was the second state criminal investigator shot to death this week; on Tuesday, a veteran detective assigned to the homicide section was ambushed in the downtown area.

Wednesday's decapitated victims, both men, were discovered about 6 a.m. near the Otay Mesa border crossing, their bodies inside large plastic barrels, and their heads placed on the lids. They were not identified, but a hand-written message was left: “This is what will happen to those that hang out with the dirty Arellano Felix.â€