Thread: Shootings in Juarez getting closer to U.S. border

Shootings in Juarez getting closer to U.S. border

Updated: May 9, 2008 06:13 PM PDT

JUAREZ, Mexico - The drug cartel war is being blamed for several deadly shootings Thursday and Friday in an area popular with tourists, the Juarez strip.

Thursday, a deadly shooting happened on Avenida Juarez about one block away from the Paso del Norte International Bridge. Chihuahua State Police said at about 9:30 p.m., two men, agents 27 and 45, were shot to death. Four others were injured, including three municipal police officers.

Around 9:50 p.m., a U.S. citizen arrived at the bridge with a gunshot wound. He collapse about 10 yards past the U.S. border. Paramedics rushed him to an El Paso hospital.

According to officials, there were two more shootings overnight and another Friday morning. Officials said at about 9:00 a.m. Three agents in a police unit were intercepted by a white pickup and shot at. As of Friday evening, authorities had not released their status.

Juarez, and other border cities, have been plauged by increasing drug violence in the last few years.

http://www.kvia.com/Global/story.asp?S=8302933

Publicity about violence in Mexico was kept out of the news so as not to affect the tourist industy. Now, in light of the $1.4 billion Merida Initiative, --an anti-drug aid package--we hear about the violence because President Calderon wants the money and the technology.

Why hasn't the U.S. State Departnment issued a no travel alert for Mexico if violence has escalated?

Mexico ranks 6th in the world for oil production and with the price of gas, Mexico should be wealthy.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/tra ... 35804.html

U.S. issues Texas-Mexico border travel alert
By PATTY REINERT and DUDLEY ALTHAUS

WASHINGTON — The State Department warned Americans on Friday to be
careful while traveling in Mexico — including the Texas-Mexico
borderlands, Monterrey and Acapulco — because of recent drug-related
violence and kidnappings.

"U.S. citizens residing and traveling in Mexico should exercise caution
when in unfamiliar areas and be aware of their surroundings at all
times," the department said in a statement that fell short of an
official warning against traveling to the country. "Though there is no
evidence that U.S. citizens are specifically targeted. (But) Mexican
and foreign bystanders have been injured or killed in some violent
attacks, demonstrating the heightened risk in public places."

The advisory said drug violence was present in many parts of the
country, urban and rural, in recent months, including the
execution-style murders of Mexican officials in Nuevo Laredo.

In recent years, dozens of U.S. citizens have been kidnapped in that
border city, across from Laredo, Texas, and more than two dozen cases
remain unresolved. New cases of kidnappings continue to be reported,
the department said.

"Drug cartel members have been known to follow and harass U.S. citizens
traveling in their vehicles, particularly in border areas including
Nuevo Laredo and Matamoros," across the Rio Grande from Brownsville,
the department said.

The advisory said American citizens should try to travel on main roads
during daylight hours and to stay in well-known tourist destinations
and areas with better security.

Besides the border areas, the broad advisory says extra precautions
should be taken when traveling in the Mexican states of Michoacan, Baja
California, Nuevo Leon and Guerrero. Nuevo Leon is the home of
Monterrey, an important city for U.S.-Mexico business interests, and
Guerrero is home to Acapulco, one of Mexico's top tourist destinations.

"We ask U.S. citizens to exercise all due caution while in Mexico and
remain vigilant for any situation that could become dangerous," said
Tony Garza, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico.

The advisory was not well-received by many Mexicans, coming as it did
amid the headlines surrounding the killings of 32 students at Virginia
Tech. An editorial cartoon Friday in Reforma, Mexico City's largest
newspaper, depicted the pistol-wielding perpetrator of the Virginia
shootings with a sign, in English, saying "Warning: Mexico is too
dangerous."


Extraditions spur violence

The body count from gangland violence in Mexico has mounted steadily
during the past four years as rival gangs battled for control of
lucrative smuggling routes into the United States for cocaine,
marijuana and other narcotics.

Police — some of whom, analysts say, were in the employ of one gang or
another — have been singled out in recent months. Eighteen have been
killed in the Monterrey area alone since the first of the year.

The violence has worsened since Mexico extradited to the United States
several drug-gang bosses. In Tijuana on Wednesday, according to wire
service accounts, four masked gunmen in the employ of a drug cartel
stormed a large hospital and battled police in an attempt to free
confederates. When the smoke cleared, two of the gunmen were in
custody, and two police officers were dead. A third person also was
killed. The police did not say what happened to the other two gunmen.

Among those extradited to America was Osiel Cardenas, the head of the
Gulf Cartel, based in the Mexican cities bordering far South Texas. His
gang has been fighting for years with a rival group based in the
Pacific Coast state of Sinaloa for control of Monterrey, Nuevo Laredo
and other cities near the Texas border. But since Cardenas' extradition
for trial in Houston, Mexican authorities say, his underlings have been
fighting one another as well for control of the organization.

Earlier this week, Mexican soldiers detained more than 100 local police
officers in Nuevo Leon state for questioning about suspected ties to
drug traffickers. None of the officers was a member of the force in
Monterrey.

By some official counts, there have been at least 700 drug slayings in
Mexico this year, including about 50 in Monterrey. More than 2,000
killings were recorded in the country last year. Twenty-one people died
in a single day of violence nationwide this week.

Reinert reported from Washington; Althaus from Mexico City.

patty.reinert@chron.com; dudley.althaus@chron.com