Thread: Slayings in Baja get more brazen

Slayings in Baja get more brazen

Bodies found in streets; backup troops readied

By Jose Luis Jiménez
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

October 10, 2008

TIJUANA – A spate of Tijuana violence that started with bodies being dumped late at night has expanded in the last few days to include shootings on busy public streets.

The bloodshed continued yesterday as authorities reported that at least nine men were killed in a 24-hour period, 75 in 2 weeks. The deaths in Tijuana are being blamed on the ongoing battle between feuding drug gangs in the region.

The bodies, all of which had gunshot wounds, were found in the streets between late Wednesday night and yesterday afternoon.

Baja California Gov. José Guadalupe Osuna Millán said yesterday that he had met with his cabinet, including the secretary for public safety, to discuss how best to deploy federal police and Mexican soldiers to bolster local efforts to stop the violence.

As of yesterday afternoon, the presence of the reinforcements was not visible in Tijuana, and the governor did not say when they would arrive.

Also, Lorena Blanco, spokeswoman for the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana, said that no Americans have been reported among the estimated 79 killings attributed to drug violence in Tijuana since late last month.

In the latest slayings, two bodies were found inside a gray Nissan Quest minivan about noon yesterday near the Tijuana-Rosarito Beach city limits on the side of the toll-free road that connects the municipalities, the Baja California's Attorney General's Office said.

The unidentified men were found wrapped in a multicolored tarp next to a note from a drug gang. The message was not made public.

About a half hour later, four men were shot and killed while inside a Dodge Caravan in the middle of a Tijuana neighborhood known as November 20th, the Attorney General's Office said. The gunmen, who were in another vehicle, escaped.

Late Wednesday, three men – two believed to be innocent bystanders – were shot to death in front of a taco stand. The attack occurred about 11 p.m. in the city's El Florido neighborhood.

Police found 34 shell casings nearby, including 20 commonly used in assault rifles. Authorities believe one of the two customers at the taco stand was targeted by the gunmen, who also killed the cook.

The latest deaths are being investigated as part of the ongoing battle between rival drug gangs that has resulted in a dramatic spike in violence. The latest killings are similar to other recent slayings linked to the groups in that rifles or automatic weapons are used and the attacks are drive-by shootings.

Freelance writer Omar Millán González contributed to this report.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jose Jimenez: (619) 293-1865; jose.jimenez@uniontrib.com

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexi ... jdead.html

This is so sad....I dont have any words for it.

If the violence keeps getting worse down there, we may be seeing more IA's coming up here to escape this carnage, bad economy or not. Some would rather starve than die.

Oct 9, 11:10 PM EDT

Grenade attack kills 5 state police in Mexico

By E. EDUARDO CASTILLO
Associated Press Writer

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Five state police officers were killed in the western Mexican state of Jalisco by grenade-lobbing gunmen who fired more than 800 bullets in the attack, authorities said Thursday.

The officers came under fire Wednesday night as they prepared to search a car they had just stopped in the town of Lagos de Moreno outside the western city of Guadalajara, the Jalisco state public safety department said in a statement.

An unknown number of assailants arrived in two pickup trucks. Two bystanders also were wounded, the department said.

State Public Safety Secretary Luis Carlos Najera said authorities suspected the Zetas, an infamous group of hit men tied to the Gulf cartel. The Zetas have a history of aggression against Jalisco police, Najera told the Megaradio station.

The federal Attorney General's Office announced a reward of 5 million pesos (US$407,000) for information leading to the capture of those behind the attack.

Meanwhile in Ciudad Juarez, across the U.S. border from El Paso, Texas, two state police officers were shot to death by gunmen in another car as they drove along a busy avenue, said Alejandro Pariente, a spokesman for the Chihuahua state prosecutor.

Hours after the Wednesday killings, a funeral wreath was left outside the state police headquarters in Ciudad Juarez, Pariente said. The wreath was accompanied by a threatening message and the name of the two slain officers and other policemen.

No suspects were named in the shooting.

Police increasingly have come under attack from drug cartels fighting a nationwide crackdown. In Ciudad Juarez, several officers have been gunned down after their names appeared on hit lists left in public.

Across Mexico this year, more than 3,000 people have been killed in violence blamed on the drug trade.

Also on Thursday, the Attorney General's Office announced the arrest of seven members of a third-division football team, the Mapaches de Nueva Italia, in a drug investigation. One of the seven was a suspected member of a drug gang known as La Familia, which operates in the western state of Michoacan.

No charges have been filed against the seven, and officials did not give any other details on the investigation.

The seven were arrested Wednesday in the training center for the Aguilas de la America, one of Mexico's most popular football teams.

The Mexico Football Federation said it would expel the Mapaches if the team was found to be involved in any illegal activities, or if any of its directors were charged with a crime.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/ ... TE=DEFAULT

Gunmen kill 11 in northern Mexican bar

By MARINA MONTEMAYOR
Associated Press Writer

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AP) -- Gunmen opened fire in a bar in northern Mexico, killing 11 people, and the body of a newspaper editor was found shot dead on the side of a highway in two separate attacks, police said Friday.

Police had not uncovered a motive or detained suspects in either shooting.

The body of 40-year-old Miguel Angel Villagomez, owner and editor of La Noticia newspaper in the western state of Michoacan, was found late Thursday near a highway in the neighboring state of Guerrero, police said. He had been shot three times, including once in the head.

Shortly before midnight Thursday, unidentified assailants walked into the Rio Rosas bar in the northern city of Chihuahua and began shooting indiscriminately, said Eduardo Esparza, a spokesman for the prosecutor's office in Chihuahua state.

Chihuahua state has seen hundreds of murders this year as the government attempts to crack down on warring drug cartels. On Aug. 16, gunmen killed 13 people, including a 1-year-old child, at a dance hall in Creel, a picturesque town along a canyon railway popular with tourists.

The Inter-American Press Association said Friday it was outraged by Villagomez's slaying and urged authorities to investigate immediately.

The group noted that since 2006, two journalists have been killed in Michoacan and three have disappeared. Michoacan has suffered heavily from drug turf battles and cartel killings.

In Tijuana, another city plagued by cartel violence, authorities reported on Friday that a total of 91 people have been killed in a wave of gangland homicides since Sept. 26.

Baja California state Attorney General Rommel Moreno called the level of violence "critical and unusual," and said that 11 handwritten messages left next to many of the victims appear to have written by the same person.

The same firearms appear to have been used in about two-thirds of the killings.

Of those cases in which a cause of death has been established, 52 died of gunshots, 19 were strangled, 9 were beaten to death, 6 were suffocated and 5 decapitated.

In one case, authorities said they found human teeth and other remains inside barrels of acid left on a Tijuana street, but investigations continue into that case and those remains were not included in the totals.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/ ... TE=DEFAULT

City's drug-gang slayings to continue, local expert says

By Jose Luis Jiménez
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

October 11, 2008

TIJUANA – Until well-armed drug gangs become fearful of killing people in public, a local expert on organized crime does not see an imminent end to the violence that has gripped Tijuana.

Victor Clark Alfaro, a longtime Tijuana resident and observer of crime trends who teaches at San Diego State University, made the comments yesterday when the body count reached only three, a significant drop compared with the multiple daily homicides of the past two weeks.

A total of 91 people have been killed in Tijuana in 45 events tied to the drug-gang feud since Sept. 26, Baja California Attorney General Rommel Moreno Manjarrez said at a news conference last night. Among the victims was a Tijuana police officer who was on duty and carrying drugs when he was killed, Moreno said. The officer is considered to be the first death in the killing spree.

Yesterday, one man was shot to death just after midnight and the second about 5 a.m. in the city's Portico de San Antonio neighborhood, according to the Attorney General's Office. Authorities found near the bodies what has become the evidence that links the attacks to the drug feud: empty casings from automatic rifles.

About 10 a.m., the dismembered body of a man was found inside a drum near Tijuana's airport, along with a message to one of the leaders of the feuding drug gangs, according to information from the Attorney General's Office. The gray drum, found next to a dirt road near some athletic fields by the airport, contained the unidentified body of a man between the ages of 30 and 35.

The violence in Tijuana that started with bodies being dumped late at night has reached the level of public attacks, Clark noted. This means drug gangs believe they can move freely around the city and kill people in the streets without fear of getting caught by the police, Clark said.

And the expert doubts that the impending arrival of more federal police and military forces – which Baja California's governor announced this week – will do much to address the root cause of the problem: Tijuana's lucrative illicit drug trade. Gangs are willing to spill blood and don't care if innocent bystanders get in the way, said Clark, who's also director of the Binational Center for Human Rights in Tijuana.

One of yesterday's victims was a newspaper vendor, and late Wednesday night two men believed to be innocent bystanders were slain in front of a taco stand. They were near a man who apparently was the target of the attack, in the city's El Florido neighborhood. That man also was killed.

“We are averaging eight deaths per day over the past two weeks,â€

Think how much money these drug gangs are saving both the U.S. and Mexico by killing all of these drug gang members.

We don't have to pay to find them, arrest them, try them, send them to jail/prison.

Plus. The more of them that get killed the less other people will want to take their place.

Grenade attack kills 5 state police in Mexico

By E. Eduardo Castillo
ASSOCIATED PRESS

7:51 p.m. October 9, 2008

MEXICO CITY – Five state police officers were killed in the western Mexican state of Jalisco by grenade-lobbing gunmen who fired more than 800 bullets in the attack, authorities said Thursday.

The officers came under fire Wednesday night as they prepared to search a car they had just stopped in the town of Lagos de Moreno outside the western city of Guadalajara, the Jalisco state public safety department said in a statement.

An unknown number of assailants arrived in two pickup trucks. Two bystanders also were wounded, the department said.
State Public Safety Secretary Luis Carlos Najera said authorities suspected the Zetas, an infamous group of hit men tied to the Gulf cartel. The Zetas have a history of aggression against Jalisco police, Najera told the Megaradio station.

The federal Attorney General's Office announced a reward of 5 million pesos (US$407,000) for information leading to the capture of those behind the attack.

Meanwhile in Ciudad Juarez, across the U.S. border from El Paso, Texas, two state police officers were shot to death by gunmen in another car as they drove along a busy avenue, said Alejandro Pariente, a spokesman for the Chihuahua state prosecutor.

Hours after the Wednesday killings, a funeral wreath was left outside the state police headquarters in Ciudad Juarez, Pariente said. The wreath was accompanied by a threatening message and the name of the two slain officers and other policemen.

No suspects were named in the shooting.

Police increasingly have come under attack from drug cartels fighting a nationwide crackdown. In Ciudad Juarez, several officers have been gunned down after their names appeared on hit lists left in public.

Across Mexico this year, more than 3,000 people have been killed in violence blamed on the drug trade.

Also on Thursday, the Attorney General's Office announced the arrest of seven members of a third-division football team, the Mapaches de Nueva Italia, in a drug investigation. One of the seven was a suspected member of a drug gang known as La Familia, which operates in the western state of Michoacan.

No charges have been filed against the seven, and officials did not give any other details on the investigation.

The seven were arrested Wednesday in the training center for the Aguilas de la America, one of Mexico's most popular football teams.

The Mexico Football Federation said it would expel the Mapaches if the team was found to be involved in any illegal activities, or if any of its directors were charged with a crime.

Associated Press Writer Carlos Rodriguez contributed to this report

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexi ... lence.html

The Mexico Football Federation said it would expel the Mapaches if the team was found to be involved in any illegal activities, or if any of its directors were charged with a crime.

I couldnt even imagine America's NFL being involved with drug cartels and murders. Does Mexico feel any shame, humiliation, or ANYTHING for the lawlessness of its people? Calderon might send more members of the Mexican army and police, but they are just as corrupt as the cartels. I say BORDER MEXICO OFF WITH A GOOD STRONG FENCE AND PUT OUR TROOPS ALL ALONG THE BORDER TO KEEP THEM OUT!

Reward offered in Mexico bar massacre investigation

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AP) — Officials are offering a reward of $37,300 for the capture of gunmen who killed 11 people in a northern city bar.
Unknown assailants walked into the Rio Rosas bar in Chihuahua before midnight Thursday and began shooting indiscriminately.

The Chihuahua state government announced the reward in a statement Saturday after a meeting between Gov. Jose Reyes Baez and security officials.

Authorities also stepped up security patrols and installed checkpoints on the main roads leading into the city.

State officials said four of the victims had criminal records, including two for drug charges. But investigators did not know whether any were targeted in the attack. Police did not identify any motives.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2008 ... tion_N.htm

Mexico is now more dangerous than Iraq... and it's right next door. Build the damn fence now.