Free Republic

Juarez- The U.S. embassy announced that it will closes it's consulate in Juarez. In a statement, the embassy said the consulate will, " remain closed until a security review is completed." They did say they will reschedule appointments for those with visa applications pending. The embassy did not say what prompted the review and a spokesman declined any further comment beyond the statement. The U.S. State Department has taken several measures over the past few months to protect employees of the consulate and their families from the deadly violence in Juarez The close comes after the March shooting death of...

JUAREZ, MX -- Authorities in Juarez made a horrific discovery. Mexican police found two human heads on top of buckets of ice. Their bodies were found nearby with a message claiming that the men were connected to a criminal gang. The heads were found at the same location of a double murder earlier this week. In other news from Juarez, six traffic officers were robbed and their guns were taken by gunmen. The officers were at a check point when the group robbed them. Police say officers have been told to be on alert.

CBP Agents Performing Southbound Inspections Spot Vehicle Heading Toward Them What started as an overnight crash in El Paso ended with shots fired on an international bridge. Shortly before 1 a.m. Sunday, El Paso Police say a Chevy Suburban crashed into another vehicle at Castner and Lee Trevino in the Lower Valley, with the driver of the Suburban then taking off. A police sergeant chased the driver for a short time until they got near the Zaragoza bridge. At that point, the sergeant watched the SUV driver try to make his way into Mexico. ABC-7 has learned U.S. Customs and...

MEXICO CITY -- A top drug gang enforcer said he ordered the killing of a U.S. consulate worker because she helped provide visas to a rival gang in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, federal police said Friday. Jesus Ernesto Chavez (aka El Camello), whose arrest was announced on Friday, leads a band of hit men for a street gang tied to the Juarez cartel, said Ramon Pequeno, the head of anti-narcotics for the federal police. Pequeno said Chavez ordered the March 13 attack that killed U.S. consulate employee Lesley Enriquez and her husband as they drove through the violent...

El Paso, TX -- El Paso Police officials say stray gunfire from a deadly attack in Juarez may have been the cause of the City Hall building in Downtown El Paso being hit by seven gunshots at about 5 p.m. Tuesday. One of those gunshots pierced through a ninth floor window of the office of Assistant City Manager Pat Adauto. The north and south stucco walls of City Hall were struck by an additional six rounds at varying heights on the walls. No one was injured by any of the bullets. Police said El Paso City Hall does not appear...

CANCUN, Mexico — Police in Cancun found 12 decomposing bodies in four caverns and were searching for more cadavers in violence blamed on drug gangs in the popular resort city, officials said Friday. Earlier this month, police discovered six other bodies, three of them cut open and their hearts removed, in a similar cavern near the Mexican resort. Three of the bodies had the letter "Z" carved on their abdomens — a possible reference to the Zeta drug gang.

McALLEN, Texas — Local leaders from El Paso and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, called for residents on both sides of the Rio Grande to allow the FBI to finish its investigation into last week's shooting of a 15-year-old Mexican by a Border Patrol agent. El Paso Mayor John Cook said Tuesday that his meeting with Juarez Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz a day earlier was aimed at finding ways to prevent another serious incident. "We specifically avoided talking about the particular issue that started all of this," Cook said. On June 7, a Border Patrol agent was trying to arrest illegal immigrants...

Tensions Remain High On Both Sides Of Border EL PASO, Texas -- A group of angry demonstrators in Mexico took to the border Saturday and dared American agents to shoot them. It happened near the same spot as last week's deadly Border Patrol shooting of a 15-year-old Mexican smuggler, close to the Paso Del Norte Bridge. There was still a lot of anger on the Mexican side over last week's shooting. Witnesses said Saturday afternoon there was a group of about 10 protesters near an opening on the other side of the Rio Grande.

A spokeswoman for the FBI tells The Associated Press that Mexican soldiers pointed their rifles and chased away U.S. Border Patrol agents investigating the shooting of a 15-year-old Mexican. The boy was shot by a Border Patrol agent who says he was defending himself from rock throwers along the nearly dry Rio Grande that divides Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, from El Paso, Texas. FBI spokeswoman Andrea Simmons said Wednesday that Border Patrol investigators were forced to leave the scene Monday night after soldiers aimed guns at them from across the river.

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AP) -- Mexicans are seething over the second death of a countryman at the hands of U.S. Border Patrol agents in two weeks, an incident near downtown El Paso that is threatening to escalate tensions over migrant issues. U.S. authorities said Tuesday a Border Patrol agent was defending himself and colleagues when he fatally shot the 15-year-old as officers came under a barrage of big stones while trying to detain illegal immigrants on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande.

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico – Mexicans are seething over the second death of a countryman at the hands of U.S. Border Patrol agents in two weeks, an incident near downtown El Paso that is threatening to escalate tensions over migrant issues. U.S. authorities said Tuesday a Border Patrol agent was defending himself and colleagues when he fatally shot the 15-year-old as officers came under a barrage of big stones while trying to detain illegal immigrants on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande.

Men Were Eating At Food Stand When They Were Shot EL PASO, Texas -- Deadly violence in Juarez broke out just yards away from an international bridge Friday. Five men were killed shortly after noon at the foot of the Zaragoza bridge on the Mexican side of the Ysleta port of entry, according to ABC-7's news partner XHIJ Channel 44. The men were eating at a food stand when they were shot. The youngest victim was just 19 years old, while the oldest was 58. Police found 38 shell casings from high-power rifles. A spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border...

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — Police found the mummified bodies of two women and three men Wednesday stuffed in plastic bags in a pickup truck left near a highway in the northern Mexico state of Chihuahua. State police said the bodies — apparently mummified by the desert climate — had not been identified. The site where the truck was found is south of the violence-plagued border city of Ciudad Juarez, where the truck had been reported stolen. University authorities in Ciudad Juarez also reported Wednesday that a freshman had been found dead, wrapped in a blanket at a local fairground.

Obama amputates our nuclear arms By: Charles Krauthammer ...snippet...Under President Obama’s new policy, however, if the state that has just attacked us with biological or chemical weapons is “in compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty,” explained Gates, then “the U.S. pledges not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against it.” Imagine the scenario: Hundreds of thousands are lying dead in the streets of Boston after a massive anthrax or nerve gas attack. The president immediately calls in the lawyers to determine whether the attacking state is in compliance with the NPT. If it turns out that the attacker...

PIEDRAS NEGRAS, Mexico — SNIPPET: "Durango state police say the heads were found on the hood of a pickup truck left in a shopping center parking lot in the city of Gomez Palacio late Saturday." A Durango state police officer sp SNIPPET: "The officer said Sunday that relatives told authorities the four men killed, ages 18 to 20, were university students in Gomez Palacio."

Killing and kidnapping at Mexico weddingPublished: May 9, 2010 at 4:47 PM JUAREZ, Mexico, May 9 (UPI) -- Gunmen killed one person at a wedding and kidnapped the groom and three others Friday at a Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, church before escaping, officials say. Chihuahua State Attorney General's Office spokesman Carlos Gonzalez said "It's unclear if this was gang or drug related," CNN reported. The shooting victim, described in his 20s, was shot in the back in the church's parking lot while running from the scene, Gonzalez said. The groom, his brother, uncle and best man were kidnapped, CNN said. In...

A Report from Juarez, the Bleeding Front Line of the War on Drugs By Susana Hayward published: April 29, 2010 Driving on a cold desert night to a small farming community along the Rio Grande where hit men had gunned down a man who stopped to buy a beer, the convoy of local crime photographers snapped away at a soldier manning a checkpoint. He was wearing a skeleton mask, a "mask of death,'' as he pulled over drivers deemed suspicious and who could be carrying drugs or guns. The soldiers were guarding a main highway outside Ciudad Juárez that leads...

Public Safety Secretary Minerva Bautista, the top security official in Mexico's western state of Michoacan where the cult-like drug cartel La Familia has been engaged in an insurgency against the government, was wounded today in an ambush which killed four others as reported by Gustavo Ruiz for The Associated Press: She was traveling in a bullet-resistant sport utility vehicle. State Attorney General Jesus Montejano told the local Milenio television station that the attackers used assault rifles, grenades, a grenade launcher and a powerful .50-caliber sniper rifle whose rounds are capable of penetrating bullet-resistant materials. * * * The dead included...

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — After a two-year battle that has killed more than 5,000 people, Mexico's most powerful kingpin now controls the coveted trafficking routes through Ciudad Juarez. That conclusion by U.S. intelligence adds to evidence that Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's Sinaloa cartel is winning Mexico's drug war. The assessment was made based on information from confidential informants with direct ties to Mexican drug gangs and other intelligence, said a U.S. federal agent who sometimes works undercover, insisting on anonymity because of his role in ongoing drug investigations. The agent told The Associated Press those sources have led U.S. authorities...

Executives Train to Foil Kidnappings, Drive in Convoys as Drug Cartels Bring Bloody Feud to Manufacturing Mecca U.S. companies flocked to the border city of Juárez because it was one of Mexico's most business-friendly cities. Now, an entire industry is adjusting to doing business in Mexico's deadliest town. Just across the U.S. border from El Paso, Texas, Juárez has turned into a murderous battleground as two rival drug cartels vie for a lucrative entry route into the U.S. A dozen homicides a night isn't uncommon. On Wednesday, Luis Raúl Macías Rosas, who was a manager at a Juárez maquiladora, was...