Posted on 01/22/2008 12:35:31 PM PST by SwinneySwitch
REYNOSA - Mexican military have surrounded the Reynosa Municipal Police Station, searching officers, vehicles and weapons.
Witnesses say the military surrounded the police station building around 7 a.m. today. More than 300 police officers across the city are being brought in to be searched, along with personal cars and police-issued weapons.
Officers at the city's precincts across the city are also being searched.
The military is undertaking similar operations today in Nuevo Laredo, Rio Bravo and Matamoros, according to press reports from Monterrey and Mexico City.
Military vehicles and personnel are blocking access to the station.
The raids come after weeks of violence has shocked citizens of the border cities as the Mexican military battles drug cartels.
The latest was three bodies found at the bottom of a canal in Reynosa. Police are investigating a link between drug gangs and those deaths.
Check back to brownsvilleherald.com as more information becomes available.
I guess I'm chicken, but I have no desire to ever visit Mexico again--and it's a pretty short drive from my home in Texas.
Related story:
Three found dead in Reynosa canal
James Osborne
http://www.themonitor.com/news/reynosa_8309___article.html/rangel_victims.html
January 21, 2008 - 10:05PM
REYNOSA — The murders of three people found dead at the bottom of a canal Saturday afternoon is alarming people already wary of a recent rash of violence in the area’s border towns.
The bodies were discovered in Colonia Arcoiris, located in southern Reynosa. They were identified as María del Carmen Rangel Velazco, 61, the leader of a Reynosa community group in colonia Reserva Territorial Campestre.
The other two victims were identified as Rangel’s son, José Arnulfo Acuña Rangel, 33, and her nephew, Felipe Reyes Rangel, 19.
Tamaulipas state police have ruled the victims were beaten to death with a blunt object.
The victims were last seen Friday afternoon getting into a white pickup truck, a description of which was provided to police by the victims’ family.
Tamaulipas state police Commander Noe Hinojosa Villarreal said Rangel was one of a legion of business persons around the city who make a living finding vacant plots of undeveloped land on which to move low-income families.
“The leaders of these colonias have a lot of interests,” Hinojosa said in Spanish. “We’re following some lines of inquiry, but it’s going to be very difficult.”
Less than two weeks ago, a series of street gun fights in Rio Bravo and Reynosa put local residents on alert, afraid that violent battles between drug cartels that had been common in other border areas like Nuevo Laredo had finally boiled over here.
This weekend’s murders, however, have not been connected to drug trafficking, or the Gulf Cartel’s battle against Mexican military and other government crackdown efforts.
____
La Frontera reporter Martha Leticia Hernandez contributed reporting to this story.
____
James Osborne covers McAllen and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4428.
Next story needs to be:
Mexican police surround Mexican Military Outpost
They will find a lot of corruption, drugs, drug appeasement, drug dealing, and murderers.
Sorry doesn’t get it done, Dude.
Winner!
Can’t tell the good guys without a scorecard ping!
Boystown is an official R&R station for all sides. Gotta buckup the troops!
Nuevo Laredo has by far the nicest one onthe Texas/Mexico border that I’ve ever found.
Maybe, just maybe, there really are no good guys involved in this thing at all! Just campesinos caught in the crossfire.
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