Thread: Tijuana carnage persists; weekend toll is 34

Tijuana carnage persists; weekend toll is 34

Cops found decapitated; tot, teen among victims

By Sandra Dibble
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

December 1, 2008

AFN
Public safety workers at the scene.

The decapitated bodies of three police officers were found alongside six other beheaded corpses yesterday in a weekend of violence in which 34 people were slain in different sections of Tijuana.

The victims 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 a few miles east of downtown.

The deaths bring to more than 360 the number killed since late September, when the violence between rival drug gangs first began to soar in a turf battle targeting each other and law enforcement officials. The total dead so far this year is more than 740, compared with 337 for all of 2007.

The nine decapitated corpses were discovered about noon in an eastern section of the city. They were found beneath a power line that runs through a neighborhood of modest houses and small businesses. The officers'identification cards had been left with the bodies, said a spokeswoman for the Baja California Attorney General's Office.

The three police officers had been assigned to high-crime districts in eastern Tijuana and Otay Mesa, the Tijuana police department said. The Baja California Attorney General's Office identified them as Rudy Galeana Guillén, Esaul RNos Montiel and Jesús Alberto Lara Ruiz.

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

A fourth officer, Alan Bernal Estrada, was slain Saturday at a used auto-parts business, the Attorney General's Office said.

The slayings have come as many officers in the 2,200-member department have been under suspicion of having links to drug traffickers. Some 200 officers have been dropped from the force since Mayor Jorge Ramos took office a year ago. An additional 20 officers – many of them high-ranking commanders – are currently being held for questioning by organized crime investigators in Mexico City.

“It is a very difficult situation,â€

Those lovely south of the border values are bubbling to the top of the METH

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[quote]“It is a very difficult situation,â€