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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | May 2008 
More Killings in Juarez, Ex-Army Major to Take Control of Police Force
 Daniel Borunda & Chris Roberts - Las Cruces Sun-News
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| | Scores of Mexican police chiefs have been killed by suspected drugs gangs. (AFP) | | |
Juarez — A retired Mexican army major was named Juárez's new public safety secretary on Monday following a violent weekend that included the killing of a prominent nightclub owner and the slaying of six people in the town of Villa Ahumada, south of Juárez.
As Juárez's top public safety official, Roberto Orduña Cruz will oversee a 1,600-member police force and will be challenged with helping curb a wave of drug-related violence that has left more than 300 dead this year, including more than a dozen police officers.
The previous public safety secretary Guillermo Prieto Quintana resigned last week following the mob-style slaying of police director Juan Antonio Roman Garcia on May 10.
"Those who thought the municipal police had been defeated and that we had caved in against the cowardly attacks by organized crime, today we are here in front of society to tell them they were wrong," Juárez Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz said while announcing the appointment of Orduña Cruz, according to a transcript.
"We are going to end with these episodes of terror creating a climate of psychosis because there are more of us who want to live in peace," Reyes Ferriz said.
Orduña Cruz had a long career in the Mexican military, including being assistant chief of military judicial police. He was also intelligence director for the federal judicial police and held several other law enforcement posts. He has taken classes with the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration.
On Sunday, Wilfredo Moya Estaco, better known as Willy Moya, was killed in a drive-by shooting as he left the V-Bar. Moya owned several Juárez businesses, including Frida's and Ajuua! restaurants and the V-Bar, Arriba Chihuahua, Hooligan's and Vertigo's nightclubs. He also had projects in El Paso.
On the U.S. side of the border, during a news conference at the El Paso VA Healthcare System offices, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, mentioned the violence in Juárez, which she attributed largely to "sophisticated and violent narco-terrorists."
"We are meeting with the government of Mexico to help them with the equipping and training of their law enforcement personnel," Hutchison said. She added that she will work to keep about $100 million in a Senate bill aimed at supporting the Merida Initiative, a cooperative agreement between the United States and Mexico to fight criminal activity. That money, she said, would be used in the United States to keep the violence from "moving across the border."
The bill must be reconciled with a House version before it is sent to President Bush.
Daniel Borunda reports for the El Paso Times, a member of the Texas-New Mexico Newspapers Partnership, and may be reached at dborunda(at)elpasotimes.com. Chris Roberts reports for the El Paso Times, a member of the Texas-New Mexico Newspapers Partnership, and may be reached at chrisr(at)elpasotimes.com.
Violence in Juárez:
• Armed men opened fired at about 1:45 a.m. Monday inside the Bar 69 on Avenida Tecnologico killing employee Gerardo Octavio Bencomo Rascon, 37. An unidentified woman was hospitalized but believed to be brain dead.
• Two men were found shot at about 11:30 a.m. Monday inside "El Chapo" junkyard in south Juárez. Hector Eduardo Mendoza Reyes, 45 was killed and Victor Ibarra Lopez, 36, was wounded.
• Early Sunday, more than 200 shots were fired in three separate spots in the town of Villa Ahumada, south of Juárez. Three local police officers, identified as Jose Armando Estrada Rodriguez, 30; Oscar Adrian Zuñiga Davila, 22; and Jose Luis Quiñonez Suarez, 21, were shot to death in a patrol car at a gas station. Luis Eduardo Escobedo Ruiz, 21, was fatally shot in a Dodge Ram. Julio Armando Gomez Magallanes, 45; and Mario Alberto Gonzalez Castro, 41, were shot and killed in a separate pickup.
Source: Chihuahua state police. El Paso Times archives.
Mexican City Police Chief Resigns
MWC News
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The police chief of the Mexican border city of Juarez has resigned after receiving death threats from drugs gangs, officials have said.
Guillermo Prieto resigned just days after hit men alleged to be working for one of the city's drug cartels killed the city's second most senior police officer, Reuters news agency reported.
Authorities say a former official from Mexico's presiential guard Roberto Orduna, will replace Prieto.
At least six high-ranking police officers have been killed in Mexico in the past two weeks as Felipe Calderon, the Mexican president, continues his campaign against the country's drugs cartels.
They include Edgar Millan Gomez, the acting head of Mexico's federal police force, who was shot dead in an ambush outside his home in Mexico City in early May.
Drug routes
More than 2,500 people are thought to have died in drug-related violence this year including about 200 alone in Juarez, opposite the US city of El Paso in Texas.
The death toll comes despite the president deploying more than 1,000 troops and heavy weaponry in the city.
Calderon has deployed 25,000 troops and federal police to fight drugs cartels across Mexico since 2007.
The number includes 2,700 troops deployed last week to the coastal state of Sinaloa, home to a group of drug gangs allegedly run by Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman.
Violence has surged in Juarez as the gang and its main rival, the Gulf Cartel, compete for the most lucrative smuggling routes over the US border. |
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