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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | September 2005 
Violence Worsens in Acapulco
 Wire services
| | Federal police patrol the main coastal highway in Acapulco on Tuesday (Photo: El Universal) |
Acapulco - A national effort to crack down on crime and violence spread to the Pacific coast city of Acapulco on Tuesday just as officials reported the killing of a police agent and the explosion of a grenade before a police station.
The Safe Mexico program brings federal troops and police to aid local forces in combating gangs, drug traffic, kidnappings and other major crimes.
Guerrero state Gov. Zeferino Torreblanca said the program took effect at 9 a.m., with police patrols and checkpoints in tourist and residential areas. "Don't ask me how many officers there are because I am not going to say," he added.
Hours before the program took effect, police reported that an agent of the state attorney general's office, Jorge Αvila, was shot to death. A grenade also was thrown at an Acapulco police station, but with no reports of damage or injury.
Acapulco has seen numerous kidnappings and killings in recent years, some of them related to drug trafficking. The remote, rugged mountains of Guerrero state are notoriously scattered with drug plantations.
The Safe Mexico plan was originally launched to bolster law enforcement in the northern border region following a wave of drug-related slayings in the city of Nuevo Laredo.
Killings have continued there, though at a slower pace. On Tuesday, state police said they had found the charred corpse of a man who had been shot to death. It was the 13th shot and burned body discovered in the city so far this year and the 125th reported slaying. |
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