Slayings of Juárez officer, agent put police on alert

I've been busy and have fallen behind on posting to this blog/archive of Mexican chaos, and there has been a lot. Here's another police killing, actually looks like both sides (drug gangs?) have their own warring police forces.

Juárez police were on tactical alert Wednesday after gunmen shot and killed a city police officer and an agent of the Chihuahua State Investigations Agency on Tuesday night along a Juárez street, state and city officials said.
Municipal patrol officer Ismael Chairez Hernandez and agent Jose Enrique Martinez Torres were riding in a state patrol vehicle that was raked by 70 gunshots in a mob-style ambush while at a stop sign on Avenida Gómez Morín, officials said.

Investigators said they are looking into possible police corruption and are trying to determine why Chairez was in a state vehicle while he was supposed to be on patrol. Investigators found $1,820 hidden under a car seat in the state patrol car plus $1,736 in Chairez's pocket.

Juárez police also said Chairez was among officers who on Monday night arrested an agent of the Federal Preventive Police and two other people equipped with handguns, ski masks and gray tape. It was unknown if the cases were linked.

El Paso Times - Slayings of Juárez officer, agent put police on alert

Woman pleads guilty for role in border kidnapping of Texans

(5/15/07 - LAREDO, TX) - A Mexican national living in the United States pleaded guilty Monday to conspiring to kidnap two U.S. citizens held captive for one day last year before a $20,000 ransom was paid.

Maria Christina Rodriguez, 31, will be sentenced later this year. She remains in federal custody, said Nancy Herrera, executive assistant U.S. attorney for the southern district of Texas.

A phone message left with Rodriguez's attorneys was not returned Monday.

The victims were taken by at least four black-clad gunmen July 16 in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, the violence-plagued border city where the captives had gone to attend a wedding.

Rodriguez worked at a Laredo restaurant with one of the victims and tipped off the kidnappers in Mexico about their whereabouts, officials said. She was paid $2,500 for helping the kidnappers, authorities said.

Mexican authorities arrested four men who admitted to the kidnapping about two weeks after it took place. They have not yet been tried.

abc13.com: Woman pleads guilty for role in border kidnapping of Texans

4 government bodyguards killed in Mexico

VERACRUZ, Mexico Assailants killed four bodyguards protecting a state governor's children in the Gulf coast city of Veracruz, amid a wave of violence across Mexico that has hit soldiers and police.

Army troops were sent today to Veracruz after the slaying of the men.

Veracruz prosecutors said it appears the gunmen mistook the guards' vehicle for that of a rival gang.

Also today, the bodies of four men who were tortured and shot in the head were found in the city of Nuevo Laredo, across the U-S border from Laredo, Texas. That's what state police commander Wenceslao Gaznarez says. A sign was found nearby bearing a threat to the Sinaloa drug cartel from its rival, the Gulf cartel.

KGBT 4 - TV Harlingen, TX: 4 government bodyguards killed in Mexico

Another Bloody Day in Mexico's Drug Wars | Uncovering Mexico

By Jeremy Schwartz | Monday, May 14, 2007, 01:57 PM

Just when you think Mexico’s drug war can’t get any worse, there is a day like today.

First came news that two more journalists are missing, presumably kidnapped by drug cartels. This time it’s a TV reporter and cameraman from Monterrey, which is quickly replacing Nuevo Laredo as the most dangerous spot in northern Mexico.

Things have gotten incredibly dangerous for Mexican journalists this year. Earlier this month, hit men delivered a decapitated body to a newspaper in Veracruz with a threatening message.

Also this morning, narco-violence struck the same neighborhood as the Cox Newspapers office, when the director of a Mexico City drug intelligence unit was gunned down inside his SUV. At about the same time a police chief was killed near Acapulco.

There have been more than 1,000 drug war deaths since January, according to a tally by the daily newspaper El Universal.

Another Bloody Day in Mexico's Drug Wars | Uncovering Mexico

Gunmen Dressed as Cops Kill Police Chief in Mexico

At least he wasn't beheaded, like some other unfortunate police chiefs.

CHILPANCINGO, Mexico—Gunmen disguised as federal agents shot dead the head of police in a state capital near Mexico's Acapulco beach resort on Wednesday, the third killing of a senior cop in five days.

Presumed drug gang members in black fatigues shot police chief Artemio Mejia in the back in the dusty town of Chilpancingo after he got out of his pickup truck to question them, town spokesman Reemberto Valdez said.

President Felipe Calderon has sent thousands of troops and federal police to tackle drug cartels across Mexico, but the increased firepower has failed to contain the violence, including a recent wave of attacks on senior officers.

Bodyguards traveling in Mejia's pickup truck returned fire, killing one gunman and wounding another, who was put under heavy guard in a nearby hospital.

Other attackers escaped in a large sports utility vehicle, exchanging gunfire with police as they sped away.

On Saturday, presumed drug hitmen shot dead a police chief in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas as he traveled in his truck. On Tuesday, gunmen killed the head of an anti-kidnapping unit in the northern city of Monterrey.

Chilpancingo, about an hour's drive from Acapulco, is the capital of the state of Guerrero, much of which consists of remote and lawless mountains dominated by drug growers and smugglers.

Narcotics gangs in Mexico occasionally assassinate senior local cops and it is often unclear whether they have been targeted because of involvement with organized criminals or in retribution for trying to catch them.

In the town of Apatzingan in Michoacan state, where soldiers firing grenades and machine guns battled gunmen earlier this week, troops in camouflage swept through a ramshackle neighborhood on Wednesday, searching house-to-house for gang members.

Outside the beach resort of Huatulco in the southern state of Oaxaca, soldiers killed one gunman after a group traveling in sports utility vehicles opened fire on their highway checkpoint, newspapers reported.

Drug-related deaths in Mexico number nearly 800 so far this year. Narcotics-related violence left 2,000 people dead in 2006.

The Epoch Times | Gunmen Dressed as Cops Kill Police Chief in Mexico

Two Killed In Shooting On New Mexico-Mexico Border

More spillover. It's impossible that an open border will provide any protection to those living on 'the other side' of chaos.

COLUMBUS, N.M. -- Authorities said two men were killed in a shooting Monday on the New Mexico-Mexico border.

Luna County sheriff's deputies told Action 7 News that a gunman unloaded more than 28 rounds into an SUV in Palomas, Mexico. There were four men inside the SUV, two were killed, one was wounded and another escaped unharmed.

Police said the uninjured man drove the vehicle from the passenger seat across the border to Columbus.


The Luna County Sheriff's Office said this is the second time this month that violence from Palomas has spilled over into Columbus.

Police: 2 Killed In Shooting On New Mexico-Mexico Border - Local News Story - KOAT Albuquerque

Zeta killers murder 5 soldiers in shootout.

Sadly it looks like the Zeta's got the better of the army on this one. The lack of coverage of the continuous carngage in Mexico is puzzling.

Five soldiers and a suspected drug cartel enforcer were killed in a shootout in the western state of Michoacan, which has been plagued by drug violence and is the target of a military-led anti-drug offensive.

More than a dozen suspected Zetas — a group of Gulf cartel hitmen that includes former soldiers — opened fire on the troops late Tuesday in Caracuaro, 120 miles west of Mexico City, police spokesman Miguel Covarrubias said Wednesday

Suspected cartel hit man, 5 soldiers die in Mexico | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle