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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | May 2007 
Gunmen Dressed as Cops Kill Police Chief in Mexico
 Reuters
| | Members of the Mexican police watch a police car hit by bullets during an attack to Cancun's Chief of Police Adrian Samos 03 May, 2007 in Cancun. According to authorities a policeman was killed and three other were injured during the attack. (Marte Rebollar/AFP) |
Chilpancingo, Mexico — Gunmen disguised as federal agents shot dead the head of police in a state capital near Mexico's Acapulco beach resort on Wednesday, the third killing of a senior cop in five days.
Presumed drug gang members in black fatigues shot police chief Artemio Mejia in the back in the dusty town of Chilpancingo after he got out of his pickup truck to question them, town spokesman Reemberto Valdez said.
President Felipe Calderon has sent thousands of troops and federal police to tackle drug cartels across Mexico, but the increased firepower has failed to contain the violence, including a recent wave of attacks on senior officers.
Bodyguards traveling in Mejia's pickup truck returned fire, killing one gunman and wounding another, who was put under heavy guard in a nearby hospital.
Other attackers escaped in a large sports utility vehicle, exchanging gunfire with police as they sped away.
On Saturday, presumed drug hitmen shot dead a police chief in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas as he traveled in his truck. On Tuesday, gunmen killed the head of an anti-kidnapping unit in the northern city of Monterrey.
Chilpancingo, about an hour's drive from Acapulco, is the capital of the state of Guerrero, much of which consists of remote and lawless mountains dominated by drug growers and smugglers.
Narcotics gangs in Mexico occasionally assassinate senior local cops and it is often unclear whether they have been targeted because of involvement with organized criminals or in retribution for trying to catch them.
In the town of Apatzingan in Michoacan state, where soldiers firing grenades and machine guns battled gunmen earlier this week, troops in camouflage swept through a ramshackle neighborhood on Wednesday, searching house-to-house for gang members.
Outside the beach resort of Huatulco in the southern state of Oaxaca, soldiers killed one gunman after a group traveling in sports utility vehicles opened fire on their highway checkpoint, newspapers reported.
Drug-related deaths in Mexico number nearly 800 so far this year. Narcotics-related violence left 2,000 people dead in 2006.
Mexican Army Kills Four in Drug Gang Shootout
Reuters
Apatzingan, Mexico - Mexican soldiers lobbing grenades stormed a house and killed four drug gang members on Monday in a battle in a town at the heart of President Felipe Calderon's war on narcotics smugglers.
Terrified neighbors fled the streets in the town of Apatzingan as more than 300 soldiers and police fanned out across a neighborhood and attacked gunmen holed up in a home.
Masked cartel members killed five soldiers in a shootout in the region last week, one of the heaviest blows to the military since Calderon sent thousands of troops to tackle drug gangs across Mexico last December.
On Monday, soldiers, some manning machine guns mounted on Humvee army vehicles, surrounded the home and responded to shots and explosives fired from inside with their own heavy gunfire and grenades.
Soldiers storming the shrapnel-riddled residence found four dead and detained two men and a woman, the army said in a statement.
Three soldiers were wounded in the fight, which lasted nearly two hours.
Apatzingan, an unusually affluent farming town, is at the crossroad of drug-smuggling routes and is in a region riddled with methamphetamine labs.
One of the dead on Monday was a woman, Michoacan state authorities said.
Despite Calderon's campaign, execution-style killings and other grisly murders have gone on unabated.
Drug-related killings in Mexico number more than 700 so far this year, compared with 2,000 in 2006. Michoacan, a mountainous avocado-growing area, is one of the states worst hit.
The Gulf Cartel based in northeastern Mexico is fighting an alliance of smugglers from Sinaloa state, headed by Mexico's most-wanted man, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman.
A local group, the Valencia gang, is strong in Michoacan.
On Saturday, gunmen killed a police chief in the southern state of Chiapas, while a police chief in the Caribbean resort of Cancun survived an attempt on his life earlier last week. |
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