Thread: US. and Mexico Border violence continues

US. and Mexico Border violence continues


Feb 17, 2008

By Michael Webster

More Mexican law enforcement officers shot to death on the streets of Juárez Mexico. This violence is starting the new year off by making it at least 10 homicides in the first few days of February 2008, Juárez Mayor José Reyes Ferriz said.

Veteran Commander Luis Alfonso Rivera Villa, 35, and Special Agent Investigator Jesus Manuel Garcia Rodriguez, 25, both with the state of Chihuahua's preventive and intelligence gathering police agency known as Cipol. Their bodies, along with 87 bullet casings, believed to be from automatic gunfire were found on Simona Barba and Bosques de Aldama streets.

Murders and kidnappings on both sides of the border have significantly increased in recent years. The violence along the U.S.-Mexican border has increased so dramatically, the United States Ambassador to Mexico, Tony Garza, during his term issued an unprecedented number of diplomatic notes to the Mexican Government and threat advisories to U.S. citizens traveling to Mexico. During August 2005, the Ambassador had to temporally close the U.S. consulate in Nuevo Laredo in order to assess security. United States-Mexican border is experiencing an alarming rise in drug-human and Terrorist smuggling activity.

Juárez Mayor José Reyes Ferriz said municipal police are starting random checkpoints hoping to catch motorists carrying weapons. Only thirty federal officers have been sent to Juárez so far despite repeated requests for more help.

"It's necessary and urgent to have agents from the federal preventive police to patrol the streets the way that we need to confront this situation," Reyes Ferriz said in a news conference.

When contacted by the Journal Army Gen. Germa Redondo Azuara said the checkpoints were in cooperation with both state and federal police. It is believed that more federal officers and equipment is in route to the city bordering El Paso.

According to Mexican authorities these killings are the 53rd and 54th murders this year in an increasingly violent drug war raging in Juárez. In January, two more police officials lost their lives in street ambushes, and one is still recovering under heavy guard at Thomason Hospital in El Paso from an attempt on his life. El Paso Hospital locked down as wounded Mexican police official treated Saturday evening, Still more automatic gunfire broke out in a gang land type gunfight on Tomás Fernandez and Jaime Bermudez avenues which left two more Juarez citizens dead, David Lopez Hernandez, 25, a former technician in the investigations unit of the Chihuahua state police, and an unidentified man. The shootout also wounded two innocent passers-by.


On the same night, Maria Elena Almanza, age unavailable, was stabbed to death in her home, and police found the body of Azahel Ivan Molina Avalos, age unavailable, dead of a bloody gunshot to the head in the cities soccer field.

Just Monday, an unidentified male an apparent victim of torture was found partly buried in sand dunes in the desert near Juárez. The actual cause and circumstances of the death is being investigated.

Still in another death the same day, Maria Margarita Bustillos Diaz, 42, was stabbed in the head by as stranger during an mysterious unprovoked altercation in a busy store on Martires del Rio Blanco and Roque Gonzalez streets. Also Mauricio Cruz Gonzalez, 22, was found shot to death in the Las Montanas neighborhood believed to be drug and gang related.

In an another instance Manuel Hipolito Llanes Guzman, 24 a Juárez man died of a gunshot wound before crashing a vehicle into a wall on the Zaragoza Bridge.

The 24-year-old man was driving a Chevrolet Avalanche with Mexican plates that rammed into a rock wall about 100 yards from U.S. inspection booths on the northbound lanes of the international bridge.

A loaded handgun was found inside the smashed vehicle.

Investigators are also trying to learn whether the handgun that was found was used in the shooting. El Paso detectives are also working with Juárez police to try to learn where the shooting occurred.

Many times in the past, victims shot in Juárez have tried to race across the border to seek medical help in the United States.

Mexican drug cartels responsible for recent border violence have also cemented ties to street and prison gangs on the U.S. side. U.S. gangs retail drugs purchased from Mexican traffickers and often work as cartel surrogates or enforcers on U.S. soil. Intelligence suggests Los Zetas Exclusive They're known as "Los Zetas have hired members of various gangs at different times including an El Paso gang Barrio Azteca, Mexican Mafia, Texas Syndicate, MS-13, and Hermanos Pistoleros Latinos to further their criminal endeavors. Dangerous Mexican Cartel Gangs

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/52121

But, there's still no reason to build the wall, militarize the border, or force millions of illegal aliens to leave this country.