Thread: San Diego Student, 17, Killed in TJ Shootout

Student Killed in TJ Shootout

By R. STICKNEY and NICOLE WARD
Updated 3:06 PM PST, Tue, Jan 5, 2010

Five recent executions in Tijuana, reportedly tied to organized crime, included the death of a teenager who lived in Tijuana and attended a private school in San Diego.

Jose Labastida, a junior at Mater Dei Catholic High School in Otay Mesa, was killed in Tijuana Monday. According to the school's principal, Labastida was killed in a shootout where more than 50 bullets were fired.

Thomas Clayton Beecher, President of Mater Dei, said he doesn't know how many of the bullets hit Labastida.

The killing was one of five separate murders in Tijuana according to ElUniversal.com.mx. The news site reports that shots were fired in an area known as "La Colonia Chaco" when Labastida, whose full name is Jose Fernando Labastida Fimbres, tried to escape from an attempted ordered kidnapping.

Jose Fimbres, as he referred to himself on his Facebook page, is the heir to the Calimax fortune. His grandfather, an entrepreneur, turned a butcher shop into a chain of Mexican warehouse stores that are similar to their U.S. counterparts, Costco.

The newspaper quotes police as saying that Labastida was still alive when he was taken to the hospital but died during treatment.

Among the other killings, a restaurant security guard was shot and killed by men in a passing car in the area of Del Bosque.

A federal police officer told the Spanish-language newspaper that the head of another victim was found in a tunnel next to the Mexicali-Tijuana Highway. The body has not been recovered.

Beecher said Labastida was a great golfer and was hoping to play on the school's team his year. He transferred into Mater Dei last year.

Counselors were on hand at Mater Dei Tuesday to help students cope with the news. A memorial service for Labastida is planned Tuesday night at a church in Tijuana.

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local-b ... 26247.html

Mater Dei student slain in Mexico

Teen gunned down in car near home

By Sandra Dibble, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
Tuesday, January 5, 2010 at 11:04 p.m.

José Fernando Labastida Fimbres, a 17-year-old Tijuana resident and student at Mater Dei High School in Chula Vista, was gunned down gangland-style Monday afternoon in Tijuana’s Chapultepec neighborhood. The assailants fired 59 shots — 39 of them from an AK-47 rifle — at José at 4:30 p.m. as he sat inside his black Audi parked near his house. (U-T file photo/2007)
Like many other well-to-do young residents of Tijuana, José Fernando Labastida Fimbres crossed the border daily to attend private school in San Diego County. But yesterday, José was missing from classes at Mater Dei Catholic High School in Chula Vista.

José, a 17-year-old junior, was gunned down gangland-style Monday afternoon in Tijuana’s Chapultepec neighborhood. The assailants fired 59 shots — 39 of them from an AK-47 rifle — at José at 4:30 p.m. as he sat inside his black Audi parked near his house.

He was one of six homicide victims reported Monday, the latest in a renewed wave of violence that has gripped the city in recent weeks, most of it perpetrated by rival criminal gangs targeting each other’s members. The great majority of crimes have taken place elsewhere in the city, not in the hillside enclave of the city’s elite.

José was a member of one of Tijuana’s most prominent families. The Fimbres family is known for its Calimax supermarket chain and philanthropic acts. José’s maternal grandfather is Gilberto Fimbres, one of the chain’s current owners.

Rommel Moreno Manjarrez, Baja California’s attorney general, said yesterday that investigators have uncovered no motive for the killing. But Moreno said the teen was clearly targeted: “It was a direct act against him.â€

U.S. high school student shot to death in Mexico

Posted 34m ago

TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) — The slaying of a teenager from a prominent Tijuana family who attended high school in California was a targeted assassination, the attorney general of the Mexican border state of Baja California said Wednesday.

Jose Fernando Labastida, 17, was shot in a late-model Audi car with California license plates near his home on Monday. Initial investigations indicate he was shot six times, and nearly 60 shell casings were found at the scene, most from assault rifles.

Attorney General Rommel Moreno said Labastida was the victim of "a direct attack to assassinate him," apparently not a botched kidnap attempt.

Labastida resided in Tijuana but attended the Catholic Mater Dei High School in Chula Vista, California.

A U.S. consular official said Labastida was a U.S. citizen. His grandfather, Gilberto Fimbres, is one of the owners of the Calimax supermarket chain.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2010 ... rnia_N.htm