Thread: Drug-war violence spreads

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007 ... wars_x.htm

Drug-war violence spreads
Posted 3/1/2007 11:59 PM ET


By Chris Hawley and Yvonne Wingett, The Arizona Republic
MEXICO CITY — As drug wars raged along other parts of the U.S.-Mexican border, things had been mostly quiet in the Sonoran town of Agua Prieta.
Not anymore.

Assassins gunned down Police Chief Ramón Tacho Verdugo this week, spraying more than 40 bullets at him in an ambush outside police headquarters in the town, near Douglas, Ariz.

The motive is murky, but it almost certainly involved control of the smuggling routes into Arizona, a U.S. official said Tuesday.

"Rival organizations are vying for control of these lucrative corridors," said Ramona Sanchez, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Tacho's slaying "is a reminder of how violent these criminal organizations are, and they will continue to use whatever means they need."

Tacho's death followed a number of drug-related killings in Agua Prieta and the arrest of Carlos "Calichi" Molinares from nearby Naco on drug-smuggling charges in Tucson on Dec. 9.

State and city police were on high alert and patrolling Agua Prieta for fear of further violence, said José Larrinaga, a spokesman for the Sonora attorney general.

Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano was "very concerned" about the attack and asked federal and state law enforcement officials to meet with border sheriffs to exchange information about border violence, said Dennis Burke, her chief of staff.

Agua Prieta joins a growing list of Mexican cities where hit men have gunned down police chiefs. At least 12 have died in the past year, including top lawmen in the border cities of Tijuana and Nuevo Laredo.

On Wednesday, gunmen firing AR-15 automatic rifles killed Abraham Farias, a state police officer in Monterrey and former head of the SWAT team in Nuevo Leon state. He was the eighth police officer killed in or near Monterrey this year.

His slaying came shortly after the Mexican government sent hundreds of soldiers and federal police to Nuevo Leon to crack down on drug gangs.

The killings have many police thinking twice about taking the top post. The Sonoran town of Naco, for example, has had 12 police chiefs in the past three years. The last one to resign was Tacho's brother, Roberto Tacho Verdugo.

Fatal attack

Ramón Tacho looked the part of the Wild West sheriff: cowboy hats and Western shirts, big belt buckles and wide mustache. He had a talent for music and had recorded an album of traditional Mexican music and corridos, romantic cowboy-style ballads.

That style helped make him one of Agua Prieta's most high-profile officials, said Ray Borane, mayor of Douglas, which lies just across the border.

Tacho was head of Sonora's state detective force before becoming police chief in Naco, then in Cananea.

He took over Agua Prieta's police force in September. Borane said Tacho was a good lawman and had made some important arrests.

On Monday, Tacho was walking to his car with a group of aides at about 5 p.m. when a Jeep Grand Cherokee and a Jeep Liberty roared up to police headquarters.

Gunmen inside the vehicles opened fire with AR-15 assault rifles, firing more than 40 bullets at the police chief, said Larrinaga of the Sonora Attorney General's Office.

Tacho was hit in the chest, stomach and leg. Another bullet grazed a paramedic at the nearby Red Cross headquarters.

Police returned fire, and the two vehicles sped off.

The Grand Cherokee was found abandoned a few streets away. Tacho underwent emergency surgery at Agua Prieta's Latino Hospital but died about 90 minutes after the attack, Larrinaga said.

Frequent targets

It was the most brazen assassination in Agua Prieta since gunmen killed the regional commander of the Federal Preventive Police in July 2003.

The Arizona border had been mostly quiet since that killing, even as battles raged between drug lords in Nuevo Laredo, Tijuana and other border points.

Police commanders are frequent targets in those places. In June, gunmen killed Nuevo Laredo's police chief less than seven hours after he took the job. In November, an assistant police chief in Tijuana was found shot and dismembered near police headquarters.

The Sinaloa cartel of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman controls territory along the Arizona border. That cartel has struck an alliance with the neighboring Juárez cartel, leading to relative peace along Arizona's southeastern border.

But on Jan. 19, Tacho's officers arrested a Sinaloa man on charges of carrying out the execution-style slaying of two men in an Agua Prieta backyard on Jan. 3. And on Thursday, two drug-smuggling suspects were found dead, their faces slashed with a knife or razor.

Larrinaga said it was still too early to tell whether Tacho's death was part of a broader drug war in the area. He said murders statewide have declined in the past year.

"We can't consider this a red flag yet," Larrinaga said.

How many Mexican police officers were killed last month? Seems like a lot!

Dixie