Thread: Drug Cartels to Mexican Police: ‘Join Us or Die’

Drug Cartels to Mexican Police: ‘Join Us or Die’

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — Drug cartels are sending a brutal message to police and soldiers in cities across Mexico: Join us or die.

The threat appears in recruiting banners hung across roadsides and in publicly posted death lists. Cops get warnings over their two-way radios. At least four high-ranking police officials were gunned down this month, including Mexico’s acting federal police chief.

Mexico has battled for years to clean up its security forces and win them the public’s respect. But Mexicans generally assume police and even soldiers are corrupt until proven otherwise, and the honest ones lack resources, training and the assurance that their colleagues are watching their backs. Here, the taboo on cop-killing familiar to Americans seems hardly to apply.

Police who take on the cartels feel isolated and vulnerable when they become targets, as did 22 commanders in the border city of Ciudad Juarez when drug traffickers named them on a handwritten death list left at a monument to fallen police this year. It was addressed to “those who still don’t believeâ€

“We Are Here to Help You.â€

On May 8, Edgar Millan Gomez, who had taken over as acting federal police chief, just 10 weeks previously, was shot by a lone gunman outside his Mexico City apartment. Police blamed the Sinaloa cartel and said a police officer was among the suspects arrested.

The shooting of Edgar Millan Gomez has been reported in so many versions it makes me question the validity of reports from Mexico.

Here shot by a LONE gunman OUTSIDE his apartment.
Another report said lone gunman INSIDE his apartment (gunman had key) and wounded guards grabbed the attacker inside the apartment.
Believe another report three gunmen inside his apartment.

Another report:

Millan Gomez's schedule was a closely guarded secret, known only to a few associates, officials said. But as he headed home accompanied by two bodyguards in an armored sport utility vehicle, four cartel hit men were waiting behind his front door.

The bodyguards dropped off Millan Gomez, who entered his home alone. Seconds later, they heard gunshots.

Though wounded by at least eight shots, Millan Gomez was able to grab one of the attackers, officials said.

"Who sent you?" he demanded. "Who sent you to kill me?" He died at a hospital, the third high-ranking federal police official killed in Mexico City in a week.

His bodyguards were wounded in an exchange of gunfire with the fleeing assailants. One man, a petty criminal with two convictions for auto theft, was arrested. At least three escaped.

http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-115888.html

Who heard his words and saw him grab an attacker? Guards apparently exchanged shots with the attackers outside before reaching the apartment.

This has already come across our border. Remember the article a couple of months ago about Mexican military jeeps on our side of the border?