Posted on 06/09/2005 8:29:39 AM PDT by SwinneySwitch
Seven gunmen wearing ski masks entered a hospital in a northern Mexican state capital Wednesday and killed a lawman who was recovering from gunshot wounds, as well as two men accompanying him, investigators said.
The assailants arrived at the Clinica del Centro hospital in Chihuahua City, the capital of the U.S.-Mexico border state of the same name, just after 1 a.m.
After subduing security guards and covering surveillance cameras, the group moved into the room of federal agent Victor Estrada, said Rene Medrano, a spokesman for Chihuahua state attorney general's office.
Authorities have made no arrests and refused to discuss a motive.
In a statement released in Mexico City late Wednesday, federal prosecutors said they were taking over the investigation.
Originally from Chihuahua state, Estrada, 36, was an agent with Mexico's Federal Agency of Investigation assigned to Mexico City's airport.
He was shot six times on Sunday while outside a concert hall.
According to the federal attorney general's office, Estrada was on vacation at the time of the original shooting, which occurred shortly after he attended a cockfight at a local street festival.
A former member of the federal judicial police force, Estrada was an 11-year veteran of the Federal Agency of Investigation who was suspended for vague investigative violations and reinstated in early March at the order of a Chihuahua judge, federal authorities said.
One of Estrada's companions killed in the Wednesday shooting was a former Chihuahua state police officer fired after testing positive for drugs, Medrano said.
In the border city of Ciudad Juarez, 250 miles north of Chihuahua City, authorities said Wednesday one of four men killed in drug-related violence was former Chihuahua state police commander Jesus Buil Issa.
Police said Buil Issa had been badly beaten and stabbed with an ice pick in the head, neck and torso. His hands were bound and both of his index fingers had been cut off, the traditional punishment dealt out by drug traffickers to informers.
Buil Issa's body was found Tuesday wrapped in a blanket inside his SUV. He had been a Chihuahua state police commander from 1992 to 1996.
Several publications in Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas, reported Buil Issa had been a close acquaintance of Amado Carrillo Fuentes, former leader of the Juarez drug cartel who died after botched plastic surgery in 1997.
Also Wednesday, Fredy Chabelas and Raul Garcia were charged in central Jalisco state with the murder of federal agent Martin Rodela.
Chabelas and Garcia - believed to be members of the notorious "Zetas," a gang of hit men employed by the Gulf drug cartel - were arrested May 25 after a confrontation with state and federal agents in the border city of Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas.
Rodela was hit in the chest in the shootout and later died of his wounds.
Police found the alleged hit men were carrying an arsenal of illegal weapons, including nine assault rifles, four hand grenades, several pistols and thousands of rounds of ammunition in their van.
This is terrible. They killed the lawmen who had been shot previously, which is odd.
They wanted to finish the job?
That's probably correct, but why did they risk getting caught to hunt him down like that? It's not likely he could identify them.
This violence will probably bring down Vincente Fox's government. They have absolutely no control over the border cities; the drug cartels do. Makes Fox look unmanly.
There was another thread about a Mexican official getting murdered. Part of a larger effort?
Corruption will do that to a country.
Just Mexican culture, now coming to Amexica.
There is a war going on in Mexico. In recent weeks the drug lords have declared war on the police and have been slaughtering them, attacking them openly in daylight and gunning them down in front of their neighbors. Police chiefs have been murdered in almost every town along the border.
Several journalists have been killed as well.
Mexican hit men have always been pretty brazen, but these have absolutely no fear. They are trying to get control of the border areas. Any policeman who is not in their pocket is dead.
OMG. I had no idea it had gotten this bad.
New Nuevo Laredo Police Chief and 2 gunned down in Laredo.
Border War Ping!
Please FReepmail me if you want on or off this South Texas/Mexico ping list.
May need to lone them a couple of Rangers.
That should do it.
As we country boys often say in response to the spoken truth, "There y'go."
Why two? There's only one border war :)
The Mexican hit men must have seen the initial Godfather movie.
In the movie, the initial street hit on Don Corleone failed to kill him, so the rival mob started to come after him in the hospital, aided by a bought-off cop. They were bluffed out of doing it by the Don's son and a florist/baker (?) acting as though they were armed bodyguards.
No it won't. Mexico doesn't have a parliamentary system. His single term expires in December 2006.
They wanted the guy dead in avery serious way . He was made an example of it's as simple as that
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