| | |  News Around the Republic of Mexico | July 2008 
12 Gunned Down in Brazen Attack in Culiacan
 Marla Dickerson - Los Angeles Times
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| | Soldiers walk past two slain bodies outside a mechanic's shop after a shooting in the northeastern city of Culiacan in Mexico's state of Sinaloa July 10, 2008. A heavily-armed group of suspected drug hitmen killed nine people in a mechanic's shop in broad light on Thursday, including bystanders getting their cars fixed, local police in the Mexican state of Sinaloa said. The victims, three on the street and six inside the auto shop where police cars were in for repairs, died in a spray of machinegun fire. (Reuters/Stringer) | | |
Mexico City - Gunmen shot 12 people to death in broad daylight near the center of Culiacan on Thursday, marking one of the more bloody and brazen recent attacks in the capital of a state plagued by drug trafficking and violence.
The Sinaloa state prosecutors office said armed men opened fire in an auto repair shop about 11:20 a.m., killing six people inside and three more just outside the doors.
Fleeing in sport utility vehicles, the gunmen traded fire with police who gave chase in a busy commercial area filled with stores and fast-food restaurants.
The dead included three police officers. One was killed during the chase; two others died later in the hospital.
The gunmen escaped. There were no immediate arrests.
Home to the Sinaloa cartel headed by Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, the western state has a long history of drug violence. In 2008, it has tallied more than 250 narcotics-related killings.
But even law-enforcement officials were stunned by the audacious daylight slayings.
"It wasn't in the wee hours. It wasn't on the outskirts of the city. It was in the full light of day in the center of Culiacan in a busy area," said Carlos Parras, spokesman for prosecutor's office. "So it appears to us to be a very serious and historic event in that sense."
Parras said Sinaloa Gov. Jesus Aguilar Padilla canceled a trip to Europe to remain in Culiacan in the wake of the latest violence.
Police have not identified the nine bodies found at the auto repair shop, nor would they give a motive for the slayings.
Mexico has been rocked this year by a wave of narcotics-related violence stemming in part from a turf war that has erupted between the Sinaloa cartel and rivals vying to control lucrative drug-smuggling routes to the United States.
The bloodshed also has been ratcheted up by a massive offensive launched by President Felipe Calderon to crack down on the drug trade.
About 40,000 soldiers and 5,000 federal police have been deployed in that effort, leading to some significant arrests and major seizures of narcotics and weapons.
Calderon asserts that the cartels have been hurt badly by the operation, and that related violence - more than 2,000 drug-related killings this year nationwide - is a sign that the drug gangs are desperate and disorganized.
But critics say the massive deployment of troops has done little but push the violence from one area to another, while several high-level law-enforcement officials have been slain.
Traffickers in Sinaloa recently hung posters mocking the 3,600 troops there as "little lead soldiers."
Cecilia Sanchez of the Times' Mexico City bureau contributed to this report. |
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