Gunmen targeting cops claim their third victim

2:00 a.m. July 8, 2009

TIJUANA: A police officer was fatally shot yesterday morning outside the Red Cross Hospital, the third officer killed since Monday night in Tijuana and Rosarito Beach.

Eva Gonzalez Cruz, 38, was killed as she stood guard outside the hospital where a fellow officer was being treated for a gunshot wound. He was shot Monday night while working outside a store in eastern Tijuana.

The attacks come on the heels of detentions of drug-gang suspects linked to Teodoro Garcia Simental, a trafficker known as El Teo. Investigators believe the attacks may be in retaliation for the arrests, said a source at the Baja California Attorney General's Office who asked to remain anonymous because he is not an official department spokesman.

Gunmen have been going after vulnerable police targets – officers assigned to guard duty. Two Tijuana officers attacked in separate incidents Monday were members of auxiliary and commercial sections of the police department who guard businesses. One officer was fatally shot.

In Rosarito Beach, an officer was shot and killed Monday as he responded to a call for help from a 20-year-old female officer, a member of a tourist assistance unit who had survived an attack at a restaurant, authorities said.

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