UPDATED January 17, 2008 3 PM PST:
TIJUANA UNDER SIEGE!
EXCLUSIVE AND FIRST TO REPORT
Click HERE for VIDEO Report
[Photo of children being evacuated from daycare in the area under attack]
Seven NOW REPORTED DEAD after police and military combine to hit known Black Commandos hideout!
Iraq? Somalia? No. TIJUANA BAJA MEXICO!
17 injured with seven dead, six kidnap victims dead, one paramilitary narco-kidnap cell member. 7 dead found inside the house where the shooting took place.
Original Report:
“The Ermita area of Tijuana is reporting heavy shooting, earlier today. Armed gunnmen are inside houses in different areas and PEP, Army, City and Federal police are involved. Extreemly dangerous. Over 250 Police envolved, they are having preliminary reports of 4 injured, 1PEP, 1FED and 2 city, also 4 detained and 3 dead. Very sketchy all unofficial, they are still searching houses in the area and they are still receiving threats over the police frequency so many got away. Terrifying experience for the residents of the area. Door to door warfare in Tijuana.”
Press Report Today:
“The corruption among the state’s police forces runs so deep that it is impeding our work,” General Sergio Aponte, joint head of military operations in Baja California, told Reuters. “There are many police officers who have dedicated themselves to protecting criminal interests.”
“OH GOD HELP US”
Numerous murders around Tijuana Today!
RECENT PAST POSTS:
January 16, 2007
Police department and City of Tijuana in Emergency situation, police officials throughout city murdered.
UPDATED! More details on yesterdays Baja Bloodbath
In each of the three incidents, the assailants used AK-47 assault rifles. Analysts linked the new violence to the continued weakening of the Arellano Félix drug cartel in recent years, with smaller groups operating with less control. “You never heard of heavily armed gunmen and kidnappings and assaults of innocent people while the cartel was intact,” said David Shirk, director of the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego.
Victor Clark Alfaro, director of the Binational Center for Human Rights and a longtime observer of Tijuana crime trends, said criminals are adapting. As officials launch new efforts, “organized crime is also devising new strategies,” he said. “It seems like a guerrilla war.” Over the years, federal, state and municipal police officers have been frequent targets of organized crime. Last year, 15 lost their lives in violent incidents in Tijuana, four of them members of the city police force. With this week’s shootings, five municipal police officers have been killed in 2008.
The latest assaults began with the shooting of the district commander of the centrally located La Mesa district, José de Jesús Arias Rico, 45, and his second-in-command, Hebert Escobedo, 35. Gunmen overtook them about 11:50 p.m. Monday as they drove in a 1988 Ford Escort on a thoroughfare, state investigators said. Rommel Moreño Manjarrez, Baja California’s attorney general, said Arias Rico had played a “heroic” role in an investigation and had been receiving death threats as a result. The second incident occurred at 3:30 a.m. in the impoverished neighborhood of Tres de Octubre. Investigators say it may have been a mistake, with gunmen shooting people they hadn’t intended to target. Eugenia Velázquez, 27, was shot to death while Mainol Gomez Ortíz, 29, and José Luis Ortíz, 3, were wounded. The third incident took place at 4:15 a.m. yesterday off a dirt road in the neighborhood known as Loma Bonita. Gunmen shot district commander Margarito Saldana Rivera, 43, inside the house he shared with his family. Also killed were his wife, Sandra, 42, and their 11-year-old daughter, Valeria Jazmín. Two other daughters, ages 4 and 20, were wounded.
Hours later, neighborhood boys showed bullets and casings found in the aftermath, while adults told of the terror they had endured. One man, 61, wept as he remembered lying on the floor of his bedroom with his wife while listening to the assailants shout and watching their shadows move outside his door. They entered his kitchen and shot up his two trucks. “It was seconds, but it seemed like years,” he said. Moreno, the attorney general, said the second and third incidents could be linked to a confrontation Monday between police and assailants of an armored truck that began in downtown Tijuana and continued on a highway known as La Via Rapida. One of the assailants, dressed as a Tijuana police officer, was killed.
These details lay out in stark terms, no manner of authority can be trusted to be the authority presented in Baja California Norte, Mexico. Badges, guns and uniforms are no longer trusted symbols of authority.
ORIGINAL STORY: Gunmen kill eight people throughout Tijuana Today! A high-ranking police official and his second-in-command were found shot to death late Monday in a central part of this city. The killings marked the second in less than two weeks of top municipal police officials.The Baja California Attorney General’s Office identified the victims as Jose de Jesus Arias Rico, chief of the central La Mesa District, and Elbert Escobedo Marquez, the assistant chief. Their bodies were found slumped inside a 1988 blue Ford Escort. Numerous shells from 9-millimeter and .223-caliber weapons were found at the scene, according to a written statement. The Agencia Fronteriza de Noticias, a Tijuana news agency, reported that the killings occurred at about 10:20 p.m. within the victims’ district, a block from a busy intersection known as La Cinco y Diez near a popular shopping mall. In a written statement, Baja California’s attorney general, Rommel Moreno Manjarrez, vowed to find those responsible for the crimes.
More mayhem! Another high-ranking municipal police official has been shot and killed, along with his wife and two daughters, police officials said Tuesday. Margarito Saldana Rivera, 43, was shot to death around 4 a.m. at his home in the Los Piños area of Tijuana. Rivera was a district chief in Los Piños, according to municipal police. His wife and 12-year-old daughter were also slain. A 4-year-old daughter was wounded in the attack and died at a hospital, police officials said. Top federal, state and municipal law enforcement officials plan to discuss the attack during a noon news conference at Tijuana’s municipal police headquarters. Security is visibly tight around the building, with numerous officers wearing ski masks and brandishing weapons. Masked federal troops and special Mexican military forces are positioned around Tijuana today, at various locations, including the municipal hospital in downtown Tijuana.
Here is the story in the aftermath of the killings and press conference at noon:
“At a midday press conference at the police station, police officers hid their faces behind black masks and had their machine guns at the ready. Grim-faced law enforcement officials descended from a parade of black, armored sport utility vehicles. They went inside to face a room that overflowed with reporters. Tijuana’s top security chief Alberto Capella recounted the events. Police are tight-lipped about the details and motives for the murders. But Baja California’s attorney general believes the case is tied to drug cartels. This wave of violence comes as hundreds of federal police are streaming into Tijuana. They’re the second group of reinforcements Mexican President Felipe Calderon has sent to the city in a year to help tame the drug violence. Local law enforcement officials say the killings may be in retaliation for the crackdown. Capella said what police are doing is working, but many Tijuana residents are fearful. “We live with Jesus in our mouth,” said Adriana Alvarado, as she pushed a stroller in downtown Tijuana. “Every time we walk out of the house, it’s like, ‘Oh, God, help us.” It’s like just saying, ‘Hey, we’re in your hands.’” Local human rights activist, Victor Clark, is nearly as fatalistic. He says the recent violence mocks officials’ claims of success and predicts the crime could be long term because law enforcement officials appear powerless.”
Among the widespread killings, a man, his wife and their 3-year-old son were shot dead while asleep in what police said was a case of mistaken identity. Police believe the same gunmen were responsible for all eight killings. Mexico sent hundreds of police and army reinforcements last week to Tijuana, just south of San Diego, following a rash of drug killings. Tijuana is the biggest city in Baja California, which was Mexico’s most violent state in 2007 with more than 400 gangland-style murders. “We know this is a war and we have to win it every day,” state Gov. Jose Guadalupe Osuna told reporters. President Felipe Calderon has been battling organized crime since he took office a year ago and has sent some 25,000 troops and federal police to the country’s worst trouble spots. On Monday alone, 17 people were found dead across the country in drug-related crimes, Mexican media reported.
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