Thread: Mexico: 2007 Cartel death toll passes 500

2007 Cartel death toll passes 500

More than 500 people have been killed in Mexico´s drug wars so far this year, according to media reports, despite a crackdown by President Felipe Calderón

Lunes 26 de marzo de 2007

More than 500 people have been killed in Mexico´s drug wars so far this year, according to media reports, despite a crackdown by President Felipe Calderón.
According to a tally kept by EL UNIVERSAL, the number of drug-related killings had reached 548 by Sunday.

The dead include dozens of police officers, the daughter of a retired Army general, and a suspected cartel hit man in the northern city of Monterrey left with an ice pick sticking out of his chest and a message affixed to his body.

"Attorney General: don´t be a fool," the note said. It accused local officials of protecting Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, leader of the Sinaloa cartel, the bitter rivals of the Gulf cartel, based in the border state of Tamaulipas. "This is just the beginning."


Calderón´s government, which took power in December, promised a get-tough approach against the drug trade, which claimed more than 2,000 lives last year. Calderón has sent Army troops into the southern states of Guerrero and Michoacán, and to the border cities of Tijuana and Nuevo Laredo.

In Tijuana, federal forces disarmed the police in January in a bid to fight widespread corruption in the municipal force.

But the measures have been criticized by many observers here.

"These operations are not designed to directly confront the organized crime groups," said José Arturo Yáñez, a researcher at the Professional Police Training Institute in Mexico City. "They are designed to have an effect in the media, so that the federal government can be seen in action."

Still, the government has scored some key successes. In January, Mexico extradited 15 suspected drug cartel leaders to the United States, including Osiel Cárdenas, who was reputed to have been running the Gulf cartel from his cell at a maximum-security prison.

And last week, the federal organized-crime unit confiscated more than US$207 million in cash from alleged methamphetamine producers operating in a Mexico City mansion.

The anti-drug campaign has also suffered some serious setbacks.

Seven police and security officials were ambushed and killed at two police stations in Acapulco on Feb 7.

Last Sunday, the police chief of the town of Boca del Río in Veracruz and two of his officers were ambushed and murdered.

"These massive executions of police officers are a new phenomenon, and no branch of the government is doing anything to stop them," said Yáñez.

In many cases, he added, government officials have suggested that the murdered officers were linked to organized crime.

"On the one hand, you have organized crime killing officers, and on the other the government is investigating officers and firing them," Yáñez said. "No one protects them."

On March 6, the top security official in the state of Tabasco survived an assassination attempt that killed one of his bodyguards. In early March, a congressman from Nuevo Laredo survived an assassination attempt that claimed the life of his driver.

Authorities say drug traffickers were likely responsible for the killing of Mireya López Portillo, the daughter of a retired general, and her husband, Jordi Peralta, in the wealthy Bosques de Las Lomas neighborhood March 17. Some officials have suggested the killings may be linked to the huge cash seizure, which took place two days earlier.

http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/miami/23921.html

"On the one hand, you have organized crime killing officers, and on the other the government is investigating officers and firing them," Yáñez said. "No one protects them."

Yea...poor Mexican Police...nothing like getting the brunt of 7 decades of official political corruption of one party rule, is there? Nothing like paying for the bribes that they (police) have been taking over the last half century from citizens, tourists, victims and perpetrators!

Its just like areally bad gang movie down there
We should pray to God they stop this killing of cops and children