Posted on 01/03/2008 3:32:55 PM PST by SwinneySwitch
TIJUANA, Mexico, - Three Mexican police were abducted, killed and dumped on a heavily patrolled road near the U.S. border on New Year's Day despite an influx of troops in the area, the state attorney general's office said on Thursday.
The policemen from the sprawling border city of Tijuana near San Diego, California -- one of them a senior city police officer -- were found wrapped in sheets outside the nearby beach town of Rosarito on a highway with several army checkpoints.
"This looks like a response by organized crime to the military's increased presence here," said an official from the Baja California state attorney general's office.
President Felipe Calderon has been using some 25,000 troops and federal police to battle powerful organized crime gangs and drug cartels since he came to power a year ago.
The government sent hundreds more troops to Tijuana and Rosarito in late December and disarmed Rosarito's police force after a failed attempt to kill the town's police chief raised suspicions it was infiltrated by drug gangs.
The police executions were the first drug-related murders in Baja California, Mexico's most violent state, this year.
In 2007, the state counted more than 400 drug-related killings as more than 2,500 people were killed nationwide in spite of the military assault on traffickers. (Reporting by Lizbeth Diaz; Writing by Robin Emmott, Editing by Sandra Maler)
This looks like the military presence isn't doing diddly squat.
They did a good job disarming the cops leaving them unable to defend themselves.
Ping!
If you want on, or off this S. Texas/Mexico ping list, please FReepMail me.
What the heck is going on down there in Mexico? They’re almost as disorganized as Pakistan.
I my opinion it looks like the Mexican military did a whole lot to three Mexican police.
The Mexican military has been suspected of escorting drug runners across the border.
Whoever did it were some tough hombres. Last time I was there all of the cops carried G3 battle rifles.
I had to read the headline twice to realize it said “Mexican” rather than “Iraqi” police.
They were Tijuana police officers.
Mexican federal officials return guns to disarmed Tijuana police officers | January 27, 2007
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1774847/posts
I wouldn’t doubt those are some tough hombres.
Nothing new, it's just with the 'net we actually get to hear about how bad it is.....
Put dos y dos together here: Mex cops killed by Mex troops over "who gets the protection money".
I was going the sentence, below, of the article just posted. Was this referring to the incident a year ago? I got the impression it was current:
The government sent hundreds more troops to Tijuana and Rosarito in late December and disarmed Rosarito's police force after a failed attempt to kill the town's police chief raised suspicions it was infiltrated by drug gangs.
Tijuana officers killed. Rosarito officers disarmed. Two different police forces.
http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/mexico_security_memo_dec_27_2007
December 27, 2007 | 2021 GMT
Organized Crime in Baja California
An unknown number of assailants attacked the newly appointed police chief of Playas de Rosarito, Jorge Eduardo Montero Alvarez, on Dec. 18, killing one policeman and injuring at least one other. The attack happened at about 1 p.m. when approximately 10 vehicles pulled up to the building where Montero Alvarez and his bodyguards were getting out of their vehicles and the assailants opened fire with high-caliber weapons. The police repelled the attack, returning fire with AK-47 and R-15 rifles; Montero Alvarez was not hurt. Three vans spotted in the attack were later found abandoned nearby.
The attack followed a Dec. 17 announcement by Mexican President Felipe Calderon that the federal government would aid in a crackdown on organized crime with a deployment by the Mexican military to Playas de Rosarito. The attack was a definite signal of cartel displeasure; similar attacks have occurred elsewhere in connection with major anti-cartel operations. Following the announcement and the attack, an undisclosed number of soldiers arrived Dec. 19 to patrol the city, both tourist areas and high-crime residential areas.
Playas de Rosarito, which adjoins Tijuana in Baja California state, has experienced rising problems with organized crime. Extensive corruption among public officials, including law enforcement officers, has exacerbated this problem. The federal government launched Operation Tijuana in January, sending more than 3,000 troops to battle local drug gangs. The deployment to Playas de Rosarito marks the expansion of the federal mandate to combat organized crime in the Tijuana-San Diego border area.
This was certainly not "patty cake" time...
Si! I thought the same thing at first too.;^)
Poor officers, with slingshots against massed M-16 fire?
What a mess.
I hope the Mexican Army crosses the border, en mass. Lets get it over with, they have been sending their proxies to us for a decade or more.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/tijuana/20071220-9999-1m20station.html
Soldiers guard police station after shooting
By Anna Cearley
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
December 20, 2007
ROSARITO BEACH – A day after gunmen stormed the Rosarito Beach police station, killing one officer and wounding another, dozens of soldiers stood guard around the building and work crews started repairing the broken glass and bullet-nicked walls.
The attack’s apparent target, Public Security Director Jorge Eduardo Montero Alvarez, was being shuttled around the city under heavy guard as funeral arrangements were made for his fallen bodyguard, Officer Guillermo Castro Corona, 35.
Montero’s other bodyguard, Leonel Pizaña Trip, was recovering from the attack. Information on the conditions of two other injured people, unidentified civilians, were unavailable yesterday.
Tuesday’s attack occurred at 12:40 p.m. It was the third attack in recent weeks against people who were named to high-level public security positions in new administrations in Rosarito Beach, Tijuana and Tecate.
“It appears the drug traffickers are reaffirming their power over the territory they dominate,” said Victor Clark, director of the Binational Center of Human Rights in Tijuana. “They are showing that they continue controlling the zone and have power above the law.”
The Arellano Félix cartel has controlled the region’s drug trafficking for several decades. Many of the cartel’s top leaders have been arrested in the past few years, though it remains a major force along this section of the border. Competing drug groups are posing a larger threat to them, however, and the additional players could create havoc in police agencies where traffickers typically form alliances with certain officers.
John Joseph “Black Jack” Pershing
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