http://abcnews.go.com/International/wir ... id=1698687

NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico Mar 7, 2006 (AP)— Heavily armed assailants killed a state police chief and an officer and wounded two more officers Tuesday in a brazen midmorning ambush in this violent border city, authorities said.

Tamaulipas Preventive Police Chief Victor Berrones and officer Norberto Vazquez were killed and officers Jose Plata and Juan Sanchez were wounded when gunmen armed with assault rifles attacked their patrol car on the outskirts of the city, according to a police statement.

The wounded officers were being treated at a hospital, but their condition was not immediately known.

Police were out in force looking for suspects Tuesday night, and had detained a 32-year-old man. But officials did not give any further information about the suspect or a motive.

However, suspicion fell on powerful Mexican drug gangs that are battling in Nuevo Laredo for control of key smuggling routes into the United States.

Since January, 43 people have been killed in ambush-style shootings in the city of 330,000 people across the Rio Grande from Laredo, Texas including three other slayings Tuesday.

President Vicente Fox last year sent in the army and federal agents to restore order after the city's police chief was gunned down but the violence has continued.

Berrones was named interim state police chief in May. His predecessor resigned after he and five other state policemen were shot and wounded by gunmen in Nuevo Laredo, said Hector Walle, police spokesman.

Federal agents armed with automatic weapons patrol most of the city in pickups and are responsible for going after drug traffickers. But officials want to train local police to replace them eventually.

Also Tuesday, two men were found shot to death along a dirt road outside Nuevo Laredo. The men, who have not been identified, were handcuffed and bore signs of torture, police said. In another attack, gunmen shot and killed a man in an SUV.

This police chief the one that promised he'ld drive the drug dealers out... hes the third police chief this little town just across from Larado has had gunned down in the past 12 months.
How can we expect law and order along the boarder when drug dealers on the Mexican side have a free hand to do as they like.