Gunmen kill 15 Mexican officers in 2 attacks

Houston Chronicle/AP ^ | June 21, 2010 | E. EDUARDO CASTILLO

[SwinneySwitch]

MEXICO CITY — Gunmen killed 15 federal police officers Monday in separate attacks in two drug-plagued states, marking one of the bloodiest days for security forces since the government stepped up its fight with drug cartels.

Twelve officers died in an ambush near a high school in the western state of Michoacan, while assailants killed three more officers in a northern border state.

The latest in a series of mass slayings came as President Felipe Calderon defended his crackdown on traffickers in an essay on his office's website. He vowed he won't back down despite criticism that violence has only surged since he deployed thousands of troops and federal police in late 2006 seeking to crush the cartels.

"I'm clearly convinced that we would be in a much worse situation if we hadn't decided to fight criminals," Calderon wrote in the 5,000-word essay, which was published by several newspapers.

"If we remain with our arms crossed, we will remain in the hands of organized crime, we will always live in fear," the president said in the essay, which also blames Mexico's violence on the United States' voracious appetitive for illegal drugs.

In the ambush in Michoacan, Calderon's home state, officers riding in four pickup trucks were returning from a patrol when they came under fire in the city of Zitacuaro, the federal Public Safety Department said in a statement.

Ten officers died on the spot and two more on the way to a hospital. Thirteen other officers with wounds were taken to hospitals in Mexico City, the nearby city of Toluca and to the Michoacan state capital, Morelia, the Michoacan Public Safety Department said in a statement.

[SwinneySwitch]

The U.S. State Department has issued a travel warning urging U.S. citizens "to exercise extreme caution when traveling in Michoacan."

[Ax]

Back in 1992 when it was relatively safe, a convoy of us from the embassy in Mexico City drove up into the mountains in Michoacan. We got to a parking lot and all of us crowded on to an open truck, which hauled us up to the top of a mountain. The phenomenon of the migrating monarch butterflies was something to behold. Every year, hundreds of thousands of them make their pilgrimage northeast up into the midwest of the U.S. After several weeks up there, the clouds of them head back to Michoacan for the winter, not unlike the swallows of Capistrano.

[ARepublicanForAllReasons]

The Mexican gov't seems to be seriously outgunned, outmanned and also corrupt to the point that you can't tell the good guys from the bad, if there ARE any good guys left.

I would prefer legalization to a narco-state where Mexico used to be. And prefer it to tatooed Mexican drugs gangsters hanging out in every major and minor city in the USA, plying their trade.

But I am not expecting many folks to agree with me. We are headed for a real live shooting war with Mexico/drug gangs. I think Calderon is working with them, if only out of intimidation.

[TheThinker]

But border violence just isn’t that important according to Washington. Right Juan?