Pubdate: Wed, 27 Oct 2010
Source: El Paso Times (TX)
Copyright: 2010 El Paso Times
Contact: http://www.elpasotimes.com/townhall/ci_14227323
Website: http://www.elpasotimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/829
Author: Adriana Gomez Licon and Daniel Borunda

3 MEN SLAIN AT US-MEXICO BRIDGE CROSSING WERE OFF-DUTY OFFICERS

Mexican federal police officials confirmed Wednesday that the three
men killed near the Bridge of the Americas were off-duty federal
police. They were reportedly waiting for someone to arrive from El
Paso.

The men killed Tuesday at the foot of the bridge in Juarez were
Inocencio Golpe Acusca, Marco Antonio Beli Mendez, and Gustavo Hidalgo
San Juan.

"It is part of the reactions we have seen from criminal groups because
of arrests," said federal police spokesman Jose Ramon Salinas. "It is
a way to counteract and intimidate our federal police corps."

The three men were riding in a black 2000 Ford Taurus near the Mexican
customs building. The shooting prompted U.S. and Mexican authorities
to stop cross-border traffic on the bridge for 20 minutes.

At least 115 police officers or investigators have been killed in
Juarez this year -- including 32 federal police -- according to The
Associated Press.

Meanwhile, a second video with more confessions from the kidnapped
brother of the former Chihuahua state attorney general was posted
Wednesday on the Internet.

The more than 7-minute video shows Mario Gonzalez Rodriguez sitting,
handcuffed and ringed by five masked gunmen while describing several
killings in the state of Chihuahua. The video was posted on
YouTube.com.

Gonzalez was kidnapped last week in Chihuahua City. He is the brother
of former attorney general Patricia Gonzalez Rodriguez, who has denied
his videotaped claims that she protected the Juarez drug cartel.

In the second video, Gonzalez, while being held at gunpoint, claimed
his sister, the former governor and possibly a Mexican army general
met with reputed Juarez drug cartel kingpin Vicente Carrillo Fuentes.

He also said that reputed Juarez cartel leaders, "El JL" and "El
Monico," are dead. El Monico is allegedly Juan Pablo Guijarro Fragosa.

JL is thought to be Juan Pablo Ledezma, reputed to be a top lieutenant
in the cartel who oversaw the state of Chihuahua.

Last month, a U.S. anti-narcotics official told the El Paso Times that
Ledezma was rumored to be dead.

Gonzalez said Ledezma was killed in Culiacan, Sinaloa, and buried in
Hermosillo, Sonora.

The video, titled "volume 2," appears to have been filmed at the same
time as the video posted on Monday. The video promised there would be
a volume 3.

"I ask God and the people for forgiveness for killing so many innocent
people. We were sick with power. Myself, my sister, the governor and
all of us in the Juarez cartel," Gonzalez said in the video.

The authenticity of the claims, made under duress, have not been
verified by authorities.

The video ends with the off-camera interrogator saying, "Saludos,
saludos, saludos (greetings, greetings, greetings)."

Mexican drug cartels have regularly used propaganda on the Internet,
graffiti or banners during the war between the Juarez and Sinaloa drug
cartels. More than 6,700 people have been killed in Juarez since the
cartel war began in 2008.

Juarez also had another fatal attack against a state police officer
Wednesday morning.

Cruz Rodriguez Medina, 32, of the state intelligence police, was
killed about 7:30 a.m. when he was shot about 20 times at a home in a
working-class neighborhood in south Juarez.
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