Mexico police commander shot dead on U.S. border

Reuters ^ | 6/2/2005 | NA

[dvan]

MONTERREY, Mexico (Reuters) - Gunmen shot dead a Mexican police commander in front of his young daughter on Thursday, the second attack on a senior officer in this violent city on the U.S. border in two days.

Municipal police commander Enrique Cardenas was murdered outside his house as he left to drive his daughter to a primary school in the city, which lies south of Laredo, Texas, a police spokeswoman told Reuters.

The attack came a day after gunmen in a moving car ambushed and wounded another local police commander, Samuel Alvarado, as he drove through the city center.

Nuevo Laredo is a major transit point for both legitimate trade goods and narcotics entering the United States, and it is in the grip of an all-out war between rival drug gangs.

At least 57 people, including six police officers, have been murdered in the city this year as traffickers from western Sinaloa state and a local cartel have battled for control of the lucrative cross-border trade in cocaine and marijuana.

Local rights groups say more than 40 of the killings showed signs of being drug trade related -- either carried out in an ambush, or with a trademark execution-style shot to the back of the head.

The State Department issued two travel alerts on the city this year, warning that drug-related violence was getting out of hand in border cities. The alerts prompted Mexico's government to tell Washington to stay out of its affairs.

[blueblazes]

Why don't we tell Vincente Fox to go borrow some of Michael Jackson's Vaseline?????

[thoughtomator]

Why do we have a FTA with a nation that can't even establish control over its own territory? And why do we allow the free flow of the same criminals into ours?

[Texas_Jarhead]

"The alerts prompted Mexico's government to tell Washington to stay out of its affairs."

Mexican politicians campaign in the US. Mexican political leaders are continually spouting off about what America should and shouldn't do in terms of policy. Mexico actively works to deport its poor to the US and feasts on the tens of billions in cash it receives every year.

I dream of the day when we will have a national political leader that will finally put mexico in its place.

[mongrel]

Awful headline. (I know it's not your fault.) It makes it sound like it happened right on the border rather than in Mexican territory.

[truthkeeper]

And people worry about the Minutemen being armed. Go figure.

[William Terrell]

You live by the payoff, you die by those who don't want to pay you off?

[thegreatbeast]

Municipal police commander Enrique Cardenas was murdered outside his house as he left to drive his daughter to a primary school in the city... Mofos! Nothing evil enough can be visited upon these thugs.

[DumpsterDiver]

The alerts prompted Mexico's government to tell Washington to stay out of its affairs.

Yeah, shut up and let Vicente handle things! He's working very, very hard to stop the murders in the border cities.

Vicente Fox's Remarks on Slayings [in Juarez] Draw Ire
June 1, 2005

MONTERREY, Mexico (AP) - President Vicente Fox said Tuesday a majority of 12 years of killings against women in the border city of Ciudad Juarez had been solved, angering activists and victims' family members still upset over his suggestion the deaths had been blown out of proportion.

[A] report [by the former prosecutor in charge of the cases in Juarez], released in January, has been widely criticized by human rights groups, who say the figures don't add up. Fox's comments enraged many in Juarez and beyond who say far more women were killed than the government is willing to acknowledge and many of those arrested for the crimes were tortured into confessing.

In similar comments Monday, Fox also said he believed the media had sensationalized the cases.

[Liberty Valance]

"...makes it sound like it happened right on the border rather than in Mexican territory."

Correct. Monterrey is a good 3 hour drive south from Laredo.

[kcvl]

Arizona border checks blocked


By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

U.S. Border Patrol checkpoints near the Mexican border are essential in stopping the flow of illegal aliens and drugs into America, say law-enforcement authorities, but permanent checkpoints in southern Arizona are not allowed.

While Border Patrol agents in Arizona accounted for more than half of the 1.15 million illegals caught last year, Congress -- led by Rep. Jim Kolbe, Arizona Republican -- steadfastly has approved appropriation bills that prohibit permanent checkpoints along a 260-mile section of the Arizona border known as the Tucson sector.

snip

While Mr. Kolbe has endorsed the use of "tactical mobile checkpoints that move from place to place," Border Patrol Chief David V. Aguilar, who formerly headed the Tucson sector, told a Senate subcommittee last month that permanent checkpoints south of Tucson would help agents apprehend more illegal aliens trying to sneak into the United States.

Mr. Aguilar testified before a Senate Homeland Security subcommittee that agents "cannot control our borders by merely enforcing the line," adding that the Border Patrol strategy "incorporates a defense-in-depth component" to include permanent checkpoints away from the border.

"Checkpoints are critical to our patrol efforts," he said. "Permanent checkpoints allow the Border Patrol to establish an important second layer of defense."


http://washingtontimes.com/national/20050531-121646-3622r.htm

[freedumb2003]

This is confusing.

Mty is hundreds of miles form the border.

[ken21]

but guns are illegal in mechico!

(/s)

[Pebcak]

I think the article was taken from the Monterrey paper, but this incident happened in Neuvo Larado. Neuvo Larado is the sister city to Larado.

Who cares if it's the east coast or west coast Mexican drug cartel that wins. As long as there is huge money in drugs, they're going to slug it out. I wish one would just win. This violence is getting out hand.

[Pearls Before Swine]

As long as there is huge money in drugs, they're going to slug it out.

And as long as there is huge money in drugs, cops are going to be corrupt and asset forfeitures will be assiduously pursued. Make the mild drugs legal and reserve criminality for the serious delusionogens (PCP, crack). There will be less money involved and less corruption.

[Pebcak]

I agree. Probably best to make them all legal, as what we have is prohibition redux. The ones that take the hard drugs would have a short shelf life. You can't legislate morality.

But it's not going to happen. Too much of the illicit money filters it's way to the politicians.

Another problem would be unemployment. There wouldn't be a call for zillions of 'agents' fighting a problem that no longer existed.

[El Gato]

Mexico police commander shot dead on U.S. border

IF you consider 100+ miles from the border to be "on" it. When I read the headline I thought the shooting was in Matamoros, Neuvo Laredo, Ciudad Juarez, or most likely Tijuana, and maybe in a clash with US Border Patrol or US civilians. The accuracy of the MSM continues to degrade.

[Free and Armed]

I hate Fox with a passion.

[jocon307]

Can we close the border NOW?

[El Gato]

but guns are illegal in mechico!

Strictly speaking, they are not. Military guns, and their ammunition are illegal for the civilians, but sporting arms and even handguns in non military calibers are allowed, although the permit process is draconian. .38 Super is or was very popular among Mexican pistoleros, because it's available in the 1911.

Still, I very much doubt the shooter had a permit for the weapon, which although the story doesn't tell us, is likely to have been a long gun, in a military caliber, either an AK or one of the H&K's used by the Mexican military.