The Government Is Deploying 1,000 More Federal Police Officers As Part of a Wider Effort to Restore Order in the Nation's Most Violent City. Thousands of Soldiers Are Also Being Sent. The Mexican government will deploy 1,000 more federal police officers as part of a wider effort to restore order in Ciudad Juarez, the nation's most violent city, officials said Monday. Some of those uniformed federal officers began arriving in the border city Monday, two days after about 2,000 soldiers landed there in a related military buildup. Those soldiers were the first of an expected 5,000 additional troops who will be sent to help perform basic police functions. [continues 197 words]
Business Owners, Law Enforcement Officers, Journalists and Other Professionals Are Among Those Seeking Asylum in the U.S. -- Even When It Means Sitting in Jail. The Juarez police lieutenant was recovering from three gunshot wounds, the result of an assault by hit men for a drug cartel. His name was on a death list brazenly posted at a monument for fallen peace officers. Lt. Salvador Hernandez Arvizu didn't like his odds of surviving in Mexico. So he fled his hospital bed, hoping to take refuge in the U.S. [continues 1483 words]
20 KILLED IN RIOT AT CIUDAD JUAREZ PRISON It Takes Security Forces Nearly Three Hours to Contain the Unrest Among Members of Three Gangs. All of the Dead Are Gang Members, Authorities Say. A fierce battle between rival drug gangs at a prison in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez on Wednesday left at least 20 inmates dead and three critically wounded, authorities said. It took guards, police and military reinforcements nearly three hours to contain the unrest. Black smoke drifted from the cinder-block prison and helicopters patrolled overhead as anxious families waited outside for news. [continues 550 words]
Mexico's Rampant Drug Violence Has Put the Issue of Safety Front and Center for Would-Be Vacationers, and Put the Country's Publicity-Sensitive Tourism Promoters on the Defensive. Buried under two months of winter in Buffalo, N.Y., Kim Kramer could take no more. "I came home and said, 'I've got to get out of here,' " said Kramer, a 44-year-old teacher. Two weeks later, she was awash in sunshine here on Mexico's Caribbean coast, sipping a midday Hurricane and looking pleasantly thawed. [continues 707 words]
The Killing of a Newly-Hired Security Official and Two Others Raises Questions About the Drug Trade's Impact on the Popular Resort, Especially With Suspicions Falling on the Ex-Police Chief. The suspect cruised around in an SUV that had been reported stolen. He toted corrido music glorifying drug smugglers and hit men, and allegedly helped them operate in this beach resort. And until a few weeks ago, he was Cancun's police chief. [continues 1354 words]
The increase would triple the law enforcement presence in the border city, which has been racked by drug violence. Its police chief quit recently and its mayor has received threats. Amid growing alarm over drug violence in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, the Mexican government will deploy as many as 5,000 more troops to the border city, officials said Thursday. The increase would triple the number of troops and federal police officers operating there as part of President Felipe Calderon's offensive against drug traffickers. [continues 366 words]
730 IN U.S. ARRESTED IN CARTEL PROBE Fifty Arrests in California and Elsewhere Are the Latest Among 730 Targeting the Sinaloa Cartel in a 21-Month Investigation. The Justice Department announced Wednesday that authorities had arrested more than 730 people across the country in a 21-month investigation targeting Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel and its infiltration into U.S. cities. The arrests, including 50 on Wednesday in California, Minnesota, Maryland and the nation's capital, come amid growing concern in Washington that Mexican crime organizations are out of control and threaten the stability of parts of Mexico and the safety of U.S. citizens. [continues 1158 words]
Violence Is Crippling the Social Bonds and Economy of Zacatecas. Mexican town fed up with violence turns to army In the state of Zacatecas, residents of Villanueva demanded that the military take over. The soldiers came, but drug war violence got worse. By Tracy Wilkinson, Reporting from Villanueva, Mexico The people of Villanueva said they'd had enough. Men in cowboy hats, women with hand-scrawled signs, children on bikes -- they gathered outside town and blocked the main interstate highway. [continues 1439 words]
Gov. Jose Reyes Baeza Terrazas Says Gunmen Who Fired on His Convoy Weren't Aiming at Him. The governor of Mexico's most violent state said he was not the target of gunmen who opened fire on his convoy late Sunday night. Jose Reyes Baeza Terrazas, governor of the northern state of Chihuahua, was uninjured when gunmen in a car fired at guards who were trailing him at some distance. A bodyguard died in the shootout, which occurred after Baeza's three-car convoy stopped at a signal in the state capital, also called Chihuahua. Two other bodyguards and an assailant were wounded. [continues 371 words]
Gunmen Hit the Homes of Carlos Reyes Lopez and Extended Family; a 2-Year-Old Nephew and Five Other Children Are Among the Dead. Reyes Lopez Was a Member of an Elite Force. By Tracy Wilkinson, Reporting from Mexico City A team of gunmen in southeastern Mexico opened fire on the homes of a state police officer and his extended family, killing 12 people, including a 2-year-old and five other children, authorities said Sunday. [continues 382 words]
Tiny Columbus, N.M., a haven for baby boomer retirees seeking cheap living, small-town values and solitude, can't quite believe that a bloody brawl has broken out on its doorstep. The day began gently here on the U.S.-Mexico border. The cold, starry sky gave way to the orange smile of a sunrise. Over at the Pancho Villa Cafe, short-order cook Maria Gutierrez whipped up her egg and chopped tortilla special. Down the street, Martha Skinner, still in her housecoat, brewed a pot of coffee for guests at her bed and breakfast. Her husband, the local judge, walked two blocks to his courtroom to hear the week's entire caseload: one pet owner cited for keeping her dog chained up, another for allowing her dog off-leash. [continues 1828 words]
Posted Signs Say a Policeman Would Be Killed Every 48 Hours Unless Roberto Orduna Cruz Resigned. The police chief in violence-torn Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, quit Friday after several officers were slain this week and the killers posted threats that more would die unless he resigned. Roberto Orduna Cruz, the city's public safety secretary, said he didn't want to risk more lives. An officer and a jail guard were shot to death earlier Friday, two days after handwritten signs were posted saying a policeman would be killed every 48 hours unless Orduna resigned. [continues 345 words]
Juan Francisco Perez-Torres was abducted last month in front of his home and ransom demanded. Hundreds of such incidents occur each year in Phoenix, and Mexican drug-smuggling is usually involved. In broad daylight one January afternoon, on a street of ranch-style houses with kidney-shaped swimming pools, Juan Francisco Perez-Torres was kidnapped in front of his wife, daughter and three neighbors. Two men with a gun grabbed the 34-year-old from his van and dragged him 50 yards to a waiting SUV. His wife threw rocks at the car, then gave chase in her own SUV. Neighbors in northwest Phoenix called police. Yet when police found her later, she at first denied there was a problem. [continues 1898 words]
Santiago Meza Lopez, Known As El Pozolero (the Stew Maker), Says He Stuffed Bodies into Barrels of Lye for Drug Cartels. He May Be a Good Source of Information About Missing Loved Ones. Fernando Ocegueda hasn't seen his son since gunmen dragged the college student from the family's house three years ago. Alma Diaz wonders what happened to her son, Eric, a Mexicali police officer who left a party in 1995 and never returned. [continues 1168 words]
Gunmen in the Northern Mexico State of Chihuahua Abduct Nine People and Kill Six of Them Before Being Killed Themselves in Shootouts With Soldiers. Gunmen seized and killed six people, then got into a rolling shootout with Mexican soldiers Tuesday in a burst of violence that left at least 21 dead in the northern state of Chihuahua, officials said. The scale of bloodletting was remarkable even for Chihuahua, the deadliest spot in Mexico as a year-old turf war has raged in the state between rival drug-trafficking groups. [continues 337 words]
Closed-Door, Written Trials Give Way to U.S.-Style Proceedings in Chihuahua. The Overhaul Could Help Fight Corruption and Organized Crime, Analysts Say. Silvia Guadalupe Perez burst into tears as she named the bitter ingredients of her new life as a widow: three children emotionally adrift, a mounting pile of bills and meager factory wages to pay them. "I can't . . . " Perez, 36, said as she sobbed on the witness stand. She took a sip of water and dabbed her eyes with a tissue before turning again to the prosecutor's gentle questioning. [continues 1191 words]
Mauro Enrique Tello Is One of the Highest-Ranking Officials to Be Killed in the Lawlessness Fueled by Drug Trafficking and Other Gang Crime. Elsewhere in Mexico, 14 People Are Reported Killed. The bodies of a longtimeMexican army general and two associates were discovered early Tuesday on a highway to Cancun, the latest execution-style victims of the violence sweeping Mexico. Brig. Gen. Mauro Enrique Tello, who left the army last month and was working as a security consultant for the mayor of Cancun, is one of the highest-ranking officials killed in lawlessness fueled by drug trafficking and other gangland crime. [continues 383 words]
According to News Reports, Trafficking Chiefs in the State of Sinaloa Agreed Last Month to Curb Their Bloody Rivalry. Killings There Have Declined Sharply. Have some of Mexico's most notorious drug bosses declared a truce? After a record year of bloodshed, killings have dropped by two-thirds from the December level in the state of Sinaloa, the historic center of Mexican drug trafficking, according to tallies kept by local and national news media. [continues 665 words]
Two Recent U.S. Reports Paint a Dire Picture of Mexico As Its Battle Against Drug Crime Grows More Bloody, but Mexican Officials Say That Though Some Cities Are in Trouble, the State Itself Is Strong. Stark assessments of the threat that drug crime poses to Mexico's stability have put the government of President Felipe Calderon on the defensive as he tries to forge a relationship with a new U.S. president. [continues 997 words]
The Man Arrested in Baja California Is Said to Have Dissolved Hundreds of Bodies As Part of Tijuana's Drug Turf War. A suspected hit man who allegedly dumped more than 300 bodies in vats of lye at the behest of a top Tijuana crime boss has been arrested near Ensenada, according to the Mexican military. Alleged crime boss Teodoro Garcia Simental, nicknamed El Teo, narrowly escaped after soldiers on Thursday raided an upscale resort outside the Baja California port city 70 miles south of San Diego, according to one Mexican news report. [continues 213 words]
