Posted on 09/03/2009 9:22:54 AM PDT by SwinneySwitch
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico - Gunmen broke into a drug rehabilitation center, lined people against a wall and shot 17 dead in a particularly bloody day in Mexico's relentless drug war. The brazen attack followed the killing of the No. 2 security official in President Felipe Calderon's home state.
The attackers on Wednesday broke down the door of El Aliviane center in Ciudad Juarez, lined up their victims against a wall and opened fire, said Arturo Sandoval, a spokesman for the regional prosecutors' office. At least five people were injured.
Authorities had no immediate suspects or information on the victims. Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas, is Mexico's most violent city, with at least 1,400 people killed this year alone.
Most of the homicides are tied to drug gang violence, which has taken a heavy toll across Mexico. Earlier the same day, gunmen ambushed and killed a senior security official in the home state of President Felipe Calderon.
Dozens of sobbing relatives rushed to the rehabilitation center to find out if their loved ones were among the dead. Soldiers and federal agents patrolled the streets surrounding the center in the Bellavista neighborhood.
Calderon sent thousands more troops and federal police to Ciudad Juarez earlier this year, but the surge has done little to stem the raging violence. The city is home to the Juarez drug cartel, which is battling other gangs for trafficking and dealing turf.
The government is struggling to revamp Ciudad Juarez's police force, which is plagued by corruption and the assassination of many of its officers. Other police have quit the force out of fear of being targeted.
The massacre capped a particularly bloody day in Mexico's relentless drug war.
Gunmen killed the No. 2 security official and three other people in Calderon's home state of Michoacan, where the government is locked in an intensifying battle with the ruthless La Familia cartel, blamed for a string of assassinations of police and soldiers.
Jose Manuel Revuelta, who was promoted less than two weeks ago to state deputy public safety director, is the highest-ranking government official killed in the wave of assassinations sweeping Michoacan, the cradle of La Familia drug cartel.
Attackers drove up alongside Revuelta as he headed home and opened fire, state Attorney General Jesus Montejano said.
Revuelta tried to speed away, but only made it a few blocks before he was intercepted by two vehicles. Six gunmen got out and sprayed Revuelta's car with bullets, killing him, two bodyguards and a truck driver caught in the crossfire, Montejano said.
An AP reporter at the scene saw the bodies of Revuelta and his bodyguards in the car, which had at least 15 bullet holes in the front windshield. Soldiers and federal police rushed to the site - just three blocks from the headquarters of the Michoacan Public Safety Department - and a helicopter circled overhead.
Soldiers and federal police have intensified their fight against La Familia since accusing the cartel of killing 18 federal agents and two soldiers last month. In the worst attack, 12 federal agents were slain and their tortured bodies piled along a roadside as a warning.
It was the boldest cartel attack yet on Mexico's government. Authorities said say La Familia was retaliating for the arrest of one of its top members.
The government has since rounded up more La Familia suspects, including Luis Ricardo Magana, who is alleged to have controlled methamphetamine shipments to the United States for the gang. Days before his capture, prosecutors detained the mother of reputed La Familia leader Servando "La Tuta" Gomez despite his threat to retaliate if police bothered his family. The woman was released after two days "for lack of evidence" of involvement in the cartel.
Calderon first launched his crackdown against drug cartels in Michoacan, sending thousands of federal police and soldiers to his home state after taking office in late 2006. Tens of thousands more have since been deployed to drug hotspots across Mexico.
Drug gang violence has since surged, claiming more than 13,500 lives, including more than 1,000 police officers.
Calderon defended his battle against drug trafficking in a speech to Congress on Wednesday. He said the government has taken on the cartels as no previous Mexican administration has dared to do.
"As never before, we have weakened the logistical and financial structure of crime," the president told legislators.
The federal Attorney General's Office, meanwhile, announced the arrest of its two top officials in Quintana Roo, a state on the Yucatan Peninsula, for allegedly protecting the Gulf and the Beltran Levya drug cartels.
Officials provided no further details on the allegations against the prosecutors, who were ordered jailed by a court Wednesday pending the investigation.
Do we have a WALL between that stinkhole and El Paso yet? Eeeee...
Tell BO it wasnt my gun.
It’s great having an undefended border with a failed state.
That’s what you get for swearing off drugs, huh?
This is the second time I know of that this has happened. Last winter, a guy I know was visiting Juarez to check on some property his family owns there, and there was a cartel raid on a drug rehab clinic down the street from where he was. He said the emergency medical people were afraid to go there to help the injured. The ambulance stopped a block away. Several people were dead. He beat it back to El Paso, and I don’t blame him.
better build that fence soon before we have to deal with drugistan
Why rehab centers?
If you want on, or off this S. Texas/Mexico ping list, please FReepMail me.
That question leads me to two possible answers.
1. One of the rehabilitants knew too much.
2. A message to others that its dangerous to deprive a drug cartel of their hard earned money.
Absolutely scary that the drug goons would raid and kill people in a drug rehab center.
Mexico is truly a Third World feces-hole.
The best thing the US could do is shut down and seal the border, deport all Mexican illegals, execute Mexican drug cartel people in prisons in the US, and abrogate NAFTA.
We need to stop rewarding Mexico with economic goodies when their drug violence is a major threat to this nation
When the drug cartels and their supporters in government (both Mexico and US) can no longer bring in revenue....they will eventually be weakened
They can't have anyone kicking nasty drug addictions and not being contributors now can they...
2..... I bet it is more of your #2....people in drug rehab cost the Mexi-Cartels and their government sponsors big money.
Next on the list are American drug rehab centers.
I’m leaning towards BOTH answers. A rehabilitation patient knew something that would damage them, but they figured, ‘While we’re here, let’s scare others who wish to get clean.’
Mexican drug lord version of a boycott.
Probably right and there are probably other answers we haven’t thought of as well.
American rehab centers...it would not surprise me if they were next on the Mexi-Cartel hit list. Lord knows how many Mexi-Cartels we have active in the US
Five patients shot and killed at Juarez drug rehab center
By Daniel Borunda / El Paso Times
Posted: 06/01/2009 03:33:54 PM MDT
A gunmen entered a Juárez drug rehabilitation center shortly before midnight Sunday and shot five patients to death, state police said. The attacks were part of a surge in violence that has claimed 35 lives since Friday.
The unidentified men apparently were asleep when they were shot at 11:37 p.m. inside the drug rehab center named “La vida sin adicciones” (Life without addictions) at Ignacio de la Torre and Juan Méndez streets, said Arturo Sandoval, a spokesman for Chihuahua state attorney general’s office. About 50 patients were in the facility at the time of the attack, and 20 rounds were fired from three different caliber weapons, authorities said.
Sounds like the one.
We gotta do something with that drug super highway. It won't be this government tho. Too many "free drugs" types infesting it who'd love to see entire cities in the USA becoming cesspools of filthy junkies sleeping on the streets in their own barf while they wait for the free government run dispensaries to open.
As long a they get their free or cheap pot and recreational drugs, they see nothing wrong with that. It's their right you see. Society doesn't have a right to ban drugs that destroy society.
Firemen did a great job...man was it close...wall of fire less than 1/4 mile from my house! I’ve never worked so hard, up all night mostly, but we’re out of danger now. Lots of cleanup to do now, so I’ll catch you all later.
BTW.....no lightning, no houses where this started.....
http://www.siskiyoudaily.com/
smoke on the hillweb.jpg
Fire spreads to 103 acres in Hornbrook
By Heather Dodds
New! Thu Sep 03, 2009, 09:14 AM PDT
Residents of Klamath River Country Estates (KRCE) received a scare Wednesday afternoon when a fire broke out near homes in the Black Mountain area
and 20 rounds were fired from three different caliber weapons, authorities said. ........................ Errr, he left out the part about getting them from the American Gun Shows. US Taxpayers are spending 214M to help them fight it, maybe some of that money could be spent at the gun shows to help our economy.
anyway, i figured it was to make people scared of going to a rehab center so getting off drugs would be more difficult.
This is a government that charges its citizens for the right to dig food out of land fills. Our home church, Bethel Family Worship Center in Lafayette, Tennessee, sends truck loads of supplies to women and kids that are in desparate poverty down in Juarez. The menfolk are conspicuously absent.
Drug thugs must go in there to hide out.
Murdering those who are trying to cure addiction is a particularly cruel act of savagery. It’s terrorism, really, an attempt to deny all hope and assert a kind of ownership over their very souls.
Sadistic, Satanic, barbaric. Talibanic.
The USA drug dealing marketplace to a Mexican drug dealer is like they died and went to drug dealer heaven.
It doesn't matter to them how many black or Asian dealers there are, there just a whole lot more money in American junkies pockets compared to Mexican junkies pockets which makes drug turf wars far more worthwhile.
They are everywhere, Canada included, which provides another porous border to sneak drugs into the USA from as well.
Even if we do build an effective fence on the Mexican border and stop that flow of drugs, they'll just go around by international waters to Canada and pour in from there.
That will be one long and expensive fence to build.
Sending a message to those who drive down costs by reducing demand?
Here in H’El Paso from the Federal, State, County and City governments we don’t need no stinking wall or fence. It is harmful to the environment(lib speak for my maid can’t cross the border so I am against any restrictions posed against illegal immigration). Also, we are told nightly on the news that the problems in Juarez will stay in Juarez. Yeah, right.
Islam is increasing it's membership among the south American drug cartels. I suppose it's a much better religion for them, no conflicting religious tenets to conflict with and cause fleeting moments of guilty conscious attacks when murdering.
Arturo Sandoval???
Wow. Times sure are tough for grammy award winning trumpeters.
Why rehab centers?”
Loss of their customers if they get off drugs and if they get taught how bad drugs are for the civilians.
The entire country of Mexico needs an earthquake of about 10.0 or better, IMO. Let it break away from both central and north America.
Villa de Mar, with the little lighthouse? I have had some delicious meals there.
Sounds worse than Iraq down there.
I think that might be it. The waiter asked if I was familiar with Mole and brought out some of the best I’d had north of Oaxaca.
Man that’s some strong collection policy those dealers have in Juarez.
Or maybe it wasn’t collections they were concerned about. Maybe the message is: Don’t try to un-hook from your addiction or we’ll kill ya.
Well, the cartels are always looking for recruits who can keep their hands OUT of the product.
What, no volunteers? Too bad!
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