Thread: More than 30 killed this weekend in Tijuana

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More than 30 killed this weekend in Tijuana

By Sandra Dibble
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

9:19 p.m. November 30, 2008

TIJUANA – The decapitated bodies of three police officers were found alongside six other beheaded corpses Sunday during a weekend of violence in which 34 people were killed in different sections of Tijuana.

The victims also included a 4-year-old boy and a 13-year-old boy, killed by gunmen Saturday night together with two adults by a grocery store in eastern Tijuana. Several hours later, the 18-year-old nephew of Baja California's tourism secretary was found shot to death inside a vehicle in an upscale neighborhood a few miles east of downtown.

The deaths bring to more than 360 killed since late September, the result of a brutal turf battle between rival drug gangs. The total slain for all of last year was 337.

The nine decapitated corpses were found about noon in the eastern Mariano Matamoros section.

The victims were found beneath a power line that runs through a neighborhood of modest houses and small businesses. The officers' identification cards were left with the bodies, said a spokeswoman for the Baja California Attorney General's Office.

The three dead police officers had been assigned to tough patrol districts in eastern Tijuana and Otay Mesa, the Tijuana police department said.

They were identified as Rudy Galeana Guillen, Esaul Rios Montiel and Jesus Alberto Lara Ruiz.

It was unclear whether the officers were among a group of more than 400 Tijuana municipal police in those districts and two others temporarily taken off their beats while they receive training and face extensive background checks.

The 2,200-member department is undergoing unprecedented efforts to root out corruption, as many officers are suspected of links to drug traffickers. More than 200 have been dropped from the force since Mayor Jorge Ramos took office a year ago. Another group of 20 department officers, many of them commanders, suspected of ties to organized crime is currently being held for questioning by federal investigators in Mexico City.

“It is a very difficult situation,â€

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