Posted on 04/27/2008 8:02:36 AM PDT by VU4G10
TIJUANA, Mexico - Massive gunbattles broke out between suspected drug traffickers who fired at each other while speeding down heavily populated streets of this violent border city early Saturday, killing 13 people and wounding nine.
All of the dead were believed to be drug traffickers, possibly rival members of the same cartel who were trying to settle scores, said Rommel Moreno, the attorney general of Baja California state, where Tijuana is located.
"Evidently this is a confrontation between gangs," Moreno told reporters.
Eight suspects and one federal police officer were injured in the pre-dawn shootings, none gravely, said Agustin Perez Aguilar, a spokesman for the state public safety department. The suspects are being held on suspicion of weapons possession among other possible charges.
Police recovered 21 vehicles, many with bullet holes or U.S. license plates; a total of 54 guns; and more than 1,500 spent shell casings at various points in the city where the battles broke out, Perez Aguilar said.
At one point, the alleged traffickers fired at one another as their sport utility vehicles sped down a busy six-lane boulevard lined with restaurants, car repair shops, medical offices and strip malls.
Bullet holes could be seen in the walls of a factory building and on the perimeter wall of a housing complex along the road, but no bystander deaths were reported. It was not clear how long the gunbattles lasted.
A mall security guard who did not want to give his name for fear of reprisals said he heard hundreds of gunshots fired, some of which passed near him.
"I hit the ground," the guard said. When he got up again, he said he saw bullet holes in the wall behind him, a dead man lying in a pool of blood and 11 abandoned, bullet-ridden SUVs on the street.
The first shootout claimed seven victims. Three subsequent gunbattles — one outside a hospital — claimed five more, police said. The body of a man police believe to be the 13th victim turned up at a city hospital.
Tijuana, a sprawling metropolis just across the border from San Diego, California, is pervaded by frequent violence, much of it blamed on drug cartels battling for control of lucrative trafficking routes. The city is home to the Arellano-Felix drug cartel.
In January, eight people died in a gunbattle at a Tijuana safe-house apparently used by drug hit men to hold kidnapped rivals. In that confrontation, hit men holed up inside the house battled police and soldiers with automatic weapons for three hours.
and we have let somewhere between 10 to 30 million of them inside our borders.
SPECIAL...
Wow!! That's some damn fine shootin'. Almost impossible to believe.
Bad guys offing bad guys.
Hard not to CHEER.
Not much worse than a weekend in Chicago.
There are 10 to 30 million Tijuanan drug dealers in the United States? Wow. Who knew?
FYI, the border cities (Tijuana, Nuevo Laredo, etc.) are among the most violent places in Mexico. Tijuana is to Mexico as Detroit is to the United States.
In 2004, Tijuana, a city of 1.5 million, had 355 homicides. Detroit, a city of only 900,000, had 394 homicides in 2007, the lowest reported number in decades. Detroit is much more dangerous than Tijuana, and Tijuana is one of the most dangerous cities in Mexico.
.....1,500 spent shell casings .....
guess the guys in the Tiajuana CSI labs are really going to be busy
.....Wow. Who knew?.....
Irrational Mexican beating, like irrational Arab beating is a favorite sport on Free Republic.
“Evidently this is a confrontation between gangs” - you mean it was the police versus the army?
“At one point, the alleged traffickers fired at one another as their sport utility vehicles sped down a busy six-lane boulevard lined with restaurants, car repair shops, medical offices and strip malls.”
Woohoo! They’re not only bringing back 3rd world, long eradicated diseases like TB, they’re bringing back the wild, wild west!
What’s your point? That the USA is as bad as Mexico? NO, it isn’t, but it’s on it’s way as long as people keep making excuses for it! Remember citizens in Mexico are unarmed.
Let me know when you see this in Detroit....BTW, the article goes on to talk about a young woman grabbed by the military who was breaking up some of this drug mess in Mexico....she was raped. Let me know when you see that in Detroit, too.
“Last year, more than 20 police officers and rival gang members were beheaded, and their heads were often put on public display in harrowing fashion. In Acapulco, two police officers’ heads were posted on the fence outside a state government building above a poster-board sign that read: “So that you learn some respect.” In Michoacán, assassins stepped into a crowded nightclub and rolled five severed heads onto the dance floor.”
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3236/militarizing_mexicos_drug_war/
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3236/militarizing_mexicos_drug_war/
More than 1,000 police officers, soldiers and members of enemy cartels have been killed this year as President Calderon has turned up the heat
So what exactly makes this newsworthy?
I thought the press suppressed good news.
The most violent parts of the USA are significantly more violent than the most violent parts of Mexico. That's exactly what I'm saying. The overall murder rate in Mexico is higher than it is in the United States, but the differential in violence is mainly concentrated in turf wars between narco traffickers, not the kind of people normal people engage with on a regular basis. As for horrific narco-trafficking crimes, yes Mexico has a lot of that, but then Mexico doesn't tend to have horrific school shootings (Virginia Tech, Colombine, etc.) either.
“These people are animals.”
Coming soon to an American city near you.
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