Thread: Gunmen shoot police chief in Agua Prieta

http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/hourlyupdate/171136

Gunmen shoot police chief in Agua Prieta
Associated Press
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 02.27.2007
MEXICO CITY - Unidentified assailants shot the secretary of public safety of the city of Agua Prieta, across the border from Douglas, as he left his office on Monday, local media reported.
Ramon Tacho Verdugo, the city's top security official, was taken to a hospital for treatment; the government news agency Notimex quoted police as saying he died of his wounds, while the newspaper El Norte reported he was in serious condition.
Officials in the state of Sonora, where Agua Prieta is located, were not immediately available to confirm those reports.
While drug and immigrant trafficking are not unknown in Agua Prieta, the city has largely escaped the shootouts and executions that other Mexican border cities have suffered in recent years as a result of turf battles between drug gangs.
Police were reportedly searching for the assailants.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/ ... g0228.html

Another chief of police slain along border
Chris Hawley and Yvonne Wingett
The Arizona Republic
Feb. 28, 2007 12:00 AM

MEXICO CITY - As drug wars raged along other parts of the U.S.-Mexican border, things had remained mostly quiet in the Sonoran town of Agua Prieta.

Not anymore.

On Monday, assassins gunned down Police Chief Ramón Tacho Verdugo, spraying more than 40 bullets at him in an ambush outside police headquarters in this town near Douglas. The motive is murky, but it almost certainly involved control of the smuggling routes into Arizona, Mexican and U.S. officials 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 murder) 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 Dec. 9 arrest of Carlos "Calichi" Molinares from nearby Naco on drug-smuggling charges in Tucson.

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.

With Tacho's death, 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.

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.


An Old-West lawman
With his cowboy hats and Western shirts, big belt buckles and wide mustache, Ramón Tacho looked the part of the Wild West sheriff. He had a talent for music and had even 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.

But his flamboyant manner also fed rumors of ties to drug traffickers.

"Because of things people said about him - his way of dressing, acting and the way they executed him - it was said he was 'compromised,' " said Luis Arvayo, a reporter for El Imparcial newspaper who covers crime in Agua Prieta.


The attack
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 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.


Drug wars come home
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 then, even as pitched 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 Arizona border is controlled by the Sinaloa cartel of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. That cartel has struck an alliance with the neighboring Juarez 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 if Tacho's death was part of a broader drug war in the area. He said that murders statewide have declined in the past year.

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