Pubdate: Tue, 04 May 2010
Source: El Paso Times (TX)
Copyright: 2010 El Paso Times
Contact: http://www.elpasotimes.com/formnewsroom
Website: http://www.elpasotimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/829
Author: Adriana Gomez Licon

STATE INVESTIGATOR SLAIN IN JUAREZ

Attacks against Mexican law enforcement officials continued Monday in 
Juarez with the killing of a state investigative agent.

Erasto Cano Carrasco, 37, was shot to death inside a car Monday 
morning behind the Plaza Juarez Mall, Chihuahua state officials said. 
He appeared to be off duty because he was driving a nongovernment vehicle.

The state agent was found dead in a gold 2004 Nissan Sentra about 
8:30 a.m. in a neighborhood off Mexican highway 45 in central Juarez. 
Police found 19 bullet casings at the crime scene. Cano Carrasco died 
of gunshot wounds to his torso and arms.

Officials said Cano Carrasco was married and had three children. He 
was an investigative officer for the state of Chihuahua's preventive 
and intelligence gathering police, known as Cipol. He had worked for 
the agency for two years.

Law enforcement in Juarez work at the epicenter of Mexico's drug 
cartel violence.

In total, close to 5,100 people have been murdered since 2008, when 
murders skyrocketed. About 850 people have been killed this year.

Most recently, on April 23, six federal police agents and a local 
policewoman were ambushed by several gunmen in an attack in 
retaliation for arrests made the previous day, officials said.

The killings of the federal agents took place weeks after the 
president gave the corps the patrolling duties in the streets of 
Juarez. More than 5,000 federal police officers replaced the 
soldiers, whom the government withdrew from the murder capital of 
North America.

Juarez Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz said in a news statement Monday that 
he was discussing with federal police officials ways to continue 
heavily guarding police command centers and hotels where they are 
staying. Reyes Ferriz said he wants to protect law enforcement 
officials without making Juarez look like a police state.

In other Mexican cities, a surge in attacks against law enforcement 
has also been reported in the past few weeks.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon said in a speech last month that 
about 5 percent of the close to 23,000 people murdered in the past 
three years' drug cartel violence were police officers and soldiers.

Corruption within law enforcement agencies has been an ongoing 
problem in Mexico, U.S. Department of State reports said.

Cartels traditionally recruit and bribe Mexican police officers and 
kill those who do not cooperate. Some of the members of "La Linea," 
the Carrillo Fuentes cartel, were former police officers.

In 2008, the former Juarez city police director Saulo Reyes Gamboa 
pleaded guilty to drug trafficking and bribery charges in U.S. 
federal court in El Paso. He was sentenced to eight years in prison.

Cartels have openly targeted police, including listing names of 
officers to be killed in banners hung at public places.

Since January 2009, 39 city police officers have been murdered in 
Juarez, said spokesman Jacinto Segura.

Chihuahua state officials did not immediately release the number of 
state officers killed in Juarez. But state agents, with Cipol, have 
been hit in previous attacks.

At least five investigative agents were killed in 2009. Two Cipol 
police officers were killed in November, one in October, and another two in May.
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart