Thread: Killings in Mexico border city increase fivefold in 2008

Killings in Mexico border city increase fivefold in 2008

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AFP) — Suspected drug-related killings rose more than fivefold to 1,653 in Mexico's northern border city of Ciudad Juarez in 2008, according to an AFP count based on police reports.

The figure for 2007 was 318 dead.

Drug cartels, including the powerful Juarez and Sinaloa gangs, are fighting for control of key trafficking routes into the United States across Mexico, particularly in border areas where violence has spiraled.

More than 5,300 died countrywide last year in drug-related attacks, including beheadings and massacres, -- over double the figure for 2007 -- according to the country's top prosecutor.

But Ciudad Juarez, across the border from the US city of El Paso, Texas, has seen an eruption of crime, including extortion and kidnappings and attacks to finish targets off in hospitals, that has caused hundreds to flee.

The 2008 deaths included 75 police, and 46 bodies found in two hidden graves last February.

Most deaths occurred in public places with AK-47s and nine milimeter caliber weapons, according to the prosecutor's office.

Violence marked the start of 2009, with three deaths reported in the border city on Friday, and eight the previous day.

President Felipe Calderon launched a crackdown on drug-related crime at the start of his presidency in 2006 involving the deployment of more than 36,000 troops across the country, including Ciudad Juarez.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/ar ... MRSmoX8veA

Shootouts leave 8 police wounded in Mexico

The Associated Press 7:47 p.m. January 2, 2009

TIJUANA, Mexico — Mexico started off the New Year with a string of shootouts and killings.

In the northern city of Torreon, federal police said Friday they had captured two alleged hit men after the suspects threw a hand grenade at police and soldiers who cornered them at a house. Eight officers were wounded in the Thursday confrontation.

The Public Safety Department said more grenades, pistols and assault rifles were found inside the home. The two suspects were members of the Gulf drug cartel and were wanted on homicide charges in the United States, the department said.

Killings in the border city of Tijuana started less than an hour into 2009 when Saul Tamayo Hernandez, 26, was shot by gunmen while celebrating the new year outside his house with his family.

Things in Tijuana seemed to get worse with the reported kidnapping of a 12-year-old boy. But police said Friday the youth staged his own disappearance.

The boy was reported abducted Wednesday when he ran to his home to pick something up for a New Year's Eve dinner at his grandparents house a few blocks away.

When the boy didn't return, his mother went looking for him and found the door of her house forced open. A note said her son had been taken and that she would be killed if she stayed at her home.

Police said in a statement Friday the boy was found and confessed to ransacking the home and leaving the note to get money to party with his friends.

In the western town of La Huerta, a shootout between rival families at a New Year's party left four dead, and a clash between soldiers and alleged drug traffickers in Chihuahua state reportedly killed three smugglers.

Federal prosecutors also said they placed three municipal policemen in the northern border city of Ciudad Juarez under house arrest on suspicion of aiding drug traffickers.

And in the northern city of Monterrey, prosecutors accused former Nuevo Leon state policeman Aldo Perales, 34, of leading a gang of bank robbers and participating in more than 30 robberies.
Police say he has confessed to at least three bank robberies but denied carrying out others.

Officials estimate that more than 5,300 people died across Mexico in organized crime-related slayings in the first 11 months of 2008.

http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/ ... ndex=31004

This will all be blamed on us before long .. just wait and see

The violence and viciousness of the drug gangs is spreading to the rest of the population:

Mexican man arrested in machete killing of doctor

The Associated Press 5:40 p.m. January 2, 2009

MEXICO CITY — Police in western Mexico have arrested a farmworker who allegedly hacked a doctor to death with a machete for refusing to treat his son.

Prosecutors in the Pacific coast state of Jalisco say 25-year-old suspect Ricardo Garcia Barajas has confessed to killing Dr. Laura Avila. Avila was found dead in the rural health clinic she was staffing on Dec. 26.
Police say they found the murder weapon at the scene. Mexican police have sometimes been accused of coercing confessions.

In a Friday statement, prosecutors quoted Garcia Barajas as saying his son fell ill and he took the infant to the clinic.
He said Avila told him the case wasn't an emergency and that he should return the next day during normal office hours, which angered him.

http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/ ... ndex=31192

Originally Posted by fmrjarhead

This will all be blamed on us before long .. just wait and see

That's an easy one: Americans buy most of the illegal drugs and most of the illegal guns and ammo that the drug gangs use come from the U.S.
We don't even have to wait for them to say it.