Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Mexico officer escapes drug gang killers targeting police
Houston Chronicle Foreign Service ^ | ay 13, 2008 | MARION LLOYD

Posted on 05/14/2008 9:09:09 AM PDT by SwinneySwitch

MEXICO CITY — A federal police commander escaped killers near Monterrey on Tuesday as authorities in Mexico City pursued leads in a plot to assassinate more top police officials.

For the first time, Mexico's warring drug gangs are training their guns on the heads of the nation's security forces. Under siege from an unprecedented federal anti-narcotics campaign, the gangs are switching from bribes to bullets in defending their lucrative smuggling routes to the United States.

The result is three police commanders killed in the capital since May 1, including Edgar Millan, who as commissioner of the 30,000-member federal police led the civilian front of the drug war.

Another federal police commander narrowly escaped assassination early Tuesday. Arturo Cabrera had just left the Nuevo Leon state police academy at 1 a.m. when gunmen opened fire on his car, wounding him slightly in the face. He managed to return to the police base, where he exchanged fire with his assailants before a SWAT team came to his rescue, officials said.

The force's Mexico City commanders have been less fortunate.

Anti-narcotics officials revealed details late Monday on a cell of killers they said was behind Millan's May 8 assassination. The gang's alleged leader, Jose Antonio Montes, was himself a federal police officer. He was arrested along with five suspects, including the alleged hit man, Alejandro Ramirez.

The gang was apparently plotting to kill a total of six police commanders in the capital, officials said. In addition to Millan, targets included Roberto Velasco, a former head of the federal organized-crime unit, who was gunned down outside his Mexico City home on May 1.

At his arrest, Montes was carrying a list of license plate numbers belonging to the commanders' vehicles and what appeared to be sketches of Velasco's house, they said. All the targets were former or current top officials of the federal anti-narcotics squad.

Federal investigators suspect the Sinaloa drug cartel was behind the attacks in the capital. Millan had recently coordinated the arrest earlier this year of Arturo Beltran Leyva, the cartel's alleged No. 2 man.

Agents have also arrested a dozen other cartel members and seized millions of dollars in weapons and cash in recent raids in Mexico City and the Pacific coast state of Sinaloa.

On Tuesday, President Felipe Calderon dispatched hundreds of federal police to reinforce anti-narcotics efforts in Culiacan, the Sinaloa capital and the cartel's headquarters.

Twelve federal police have been killed in the state so far this month. And analysts predict the bloodshed will only increase, as the gang gives vent to internal rivalries.

In recent weeks, Culiacan has been littered with banners from feuding factions threatening violence against each other and the security forces, including one hung inside the city's Roman Catholic cathedral.

Experts say the government crackdown has fueled tension between the reputed cartel boss, Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman, and Beltran Leyva, who is aligned with the Juarez cartel. Guzman's son, Edgar, was killed on May 8 in a shootout between rival traffickers outside a Culiacan supermarket. And local news reports suggest Beltran's gang might have been responsible.

The violence is also a reaction to a more coordinated assault by the federal authorities on the cartels' power structure, some analysts said.

"For the first time, we're seeing surgical assaults on their safe houses, where the police go, attack and arrest them 10 or 15 at a time," said Jorge Chabat, a Mexico City-based security analyst. "This suggests a far more effective intelligence effort" by the federal forces.

However, Mexican authorities dispute whether the police force is up to the challenge of taking on the drug gangs.

Bipartisan members of the Mexican Congress are calling for the army to patrol the capital. Already, thousands of troops are battling the traffickers in a dozen states across Mexico.

"The police are totally out of their depth here," Obdulio Avila, a legislator from Calderon's conservative National Action Party, said on Tuesday. "There are entire neighborhoods where the police don't dare go in."

He denied that the demand was a political challenge to the capital's leftist mayor, Marcelo Ebrard, who has opposed such a plan.

"It's not a political demand," Avila said. "It's a citizen's demand."

marionlloyd@gmail.com


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Foreign Affairs; Mexico; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: corruption; mexico; monterrey; terrorism; wod
"The police are totally out of their depth here," Obdulio Avila, a legislator from Calderon's conservative National Action Party, said on Tuesday. "There are entire neighborhoods where the police don't dare go in."
1 posted on 05/14/2008 9:09:09 AM PDT by SwinneySwitch
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: SwinneySwitch
They need to replicate the Colombia model.

Everytime a narcoterrorist killed a policeman or a judge in Colombia, a volunteer paramilitary force killed a narcoterrorist lieutenant and as many of his associates as could be found.

The state still has resources the narcoterrorists do not have - it needs to use them now. As in Colombia, a few hundred people who think they are untouchable need to be found lying in the driveways of their cocaine-financed mansions.

The reason why Pablo Escobar spent the last months of his life in hiding, calling his teenage son on a cloned cellphone just to scare up scraps of food to eat is because all of his capos had been hunted down and either killed or imprisoned over the course of the preceding year.

2 posted on 05/14/2008 9:16:49 AM PDT by wideawake (Why is it that those who call themselves Constitutionalists know the least about the Constitution?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SwinneySwitch

This long ago crossed the line from crime to terrorism. The sovereignty of Mexico is at stake. They need to be stacking bodies up like cordwood until the low-lifes are dead or retired to Switzerland.

It should be noted that the source of the money greasing the wheels in this war is coke bought by Americans. Part and parcel of this is a spiritual awakening badly needed on our side of the border. If Mexico has become a Narco State, it is in large part because the US has become a Narco Consumer.


3 posted on 05/14/2008 9:19:15 AM PDT by marron
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Be_Politically_Erect; Ultimatum; Sterco; Paige; Tennessee_Bob; cspackler; ECM; STOCKHRSE; ...

(((Ping!)))

If you want on, or off this S. Texas/Mexico ping list, please FReepMail me.


4 posted on 05/14/2008 9:19:25 AM PDT by SwinneySwitch (US Constitution Article 4 Section 4..shall protect each of them against Invasion...domestic Violence)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SwinneySwitch

Monterrey: Iraq on the Rio Santa Catarina.


5 posted on 05/14/2008 9:24:06 AM PDT by Rebelbase (McCain: The Third Bush Term ?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: wideawake; SwinneySwitch
The state still has resources the narcoterrorists do not have - it needs to use them now. As in Colombia, a few hundred people who think they are untouchable need to be found lying in the driveways of their cocaine-financed mansions.

You have put your finger on the solution. When police commanders are being gunned down in front of their homes, the time has come to turn the tables. The gloves need to come off.

The time has passed for the paso doble between prosecutors and defense attorneys. This is war and needs to be treated as such. The head dogs need to be targeted and killed. Not arrested. Alive they are a danger to the entire judicial system, in a position to bribe judges and order hits even from their cells. Dead, they are an object lesson to anyone thinking about following in their footsteps.

6 posted on 05/14/2008 9:25:01 AM PDT by marron
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: SwinneySwitch
Anti-narcotics officials revealed details late Monday on a cell of killers they said was behind Millan's May 8 assassination. The gang's alleged leader, Jose Antonio Montes, was himself a federal police officer.

Could Mexico possibly be any more corrupt?

You'd think our government would have mined our southern border years ago. Of course our own government is now up to it's neck in it's own corruption.

7 posted on 05/14/2008 9:36:15 AM PDT by dragnet2
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: wideawake

Colombian warlords’ victims uneasy about extradition

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jX2iTCNbkOobWwizQVwWWPVQwVRQD90LBIQ00


8 posted on 05/14/2008 9:36:27 AM PDT by SwinneySwitch (US Constitution Article 4 Section 4..shall protect each of them against Invasion...domestic Violence)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: SwinneySwitch
Sounds like many parts of this country.

Not to worry ... it's only gangs like MS13, Eight Tray (83) Gangster Crip, Eighteen Street SC click, Florencia 13, Rollin’ 60 Crips, Mad Swan Bloods ... etc. etc.


Relax & enjoy your liberalism. It will only kill you.


ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

9 posted on 05/14/2008 9:36:54 AM PDT by G.Mason (Duty, Honor, Country)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: marron; wideawake; SwinneySwitch
You have put your finger on the solution...The gloves need to come off...The head dogs need to be targeted and killed. Not arrested...

short/concise...Border USA, the NarcoWar is here...coming soon to the Southern USA....

10 posted on 05/14/2008 9:40:19 AM PDT by skinkinthegrass (just b/c you're paranoid,doesn't mean "they" aren't out to get you..our hopes were dashed by CINOs :)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: SwinneySwitch
It's amusing how many "victims" of Colombian "right wing" paramilitaries there are.

Why aren't the children of the victims of the leftist narcoterrorists speaking out more vocally in response?

Oh, that's right. The druglords killed the kids and wives along with the parents, while the paramilitaries only killed the druglords and left the wives and children alone.

11 posted on 05/14/2008 9:55:06 AM PDT by wideawake (Why is it that those who call themselves Constitutionalists know the least about the Constitution?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: wideawake; marron
Both of you guys are correct. We need to do massive ejections of illegals so the people of Mexico know we don't want this in our country.

Maybe grant a few visas for the families of active and honest warriors.

If we don't stop this now, any guess how long till it comes here?

12 posted on 05/14/2008 12:20:25 PM PDT by investigateworld ( Sometimes I hate to always be right)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson