AMERICA'S APPETITE FOR DRUGSJust to the south, real war is brewing in Mexico and it's going to be a nasty one ... AND IT'S GOING TO COME HERE
--Jimmy Z
"More than 1,000 Mexicans have died this year in killings related to organized crime. Security analyst Ana Maria Salazar said the new element is the widespread killing of high-ranking law enforcement officials.
In addition to Millan, the city's No. 2 police official was murdered May 10 in Ciudad Juarez along the Texas border. A week earlier, a federal intelligence official had been killed outside his home in Mexico City." [...] READ IT HERE
"Police who take on the cartels feel isolated and vulnerable when they become targets, as did 22 commanders in Ciudad Juarez when drug traffickers named them on a handwritten death list left at a monument to fallen police this year. It was addressed to "those who still don't believe" in the power of the cartels.
Of the 22, seven have been killed and three wounded in assassination attempts. Of the others, all but one have quit, and city officials said he didn't want to be interviewed.
On Sunday, city spokesman Sergio Belmonte confirmed that Juarez's police chief had submitted his resignation and said he would be replaced by a military official on leave from the armed forces." [...]
Six high-ranking police
officers have been killed
in Mexico in the last two weeks.
"Police are increasingly giving up. Last week, U.S. officials revealed that three Mexican police commanders have crossed into the United States to request asylum, saying they are unprotected and fear for their lives.
"It's almost like a military fight," said Jayson Ahern, the deputy commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. "I don't think that generally the American public has any sense of the level of violence that occurs on the border." [...] READ IT HERE
"A Mexican police chief has quit his post across the border from El Paso, Texas, after receiving death threats from drug gangs that are striking back at a crackdown on smugglers, an official said on Sunday.
Ciudad Juarez's top policeman Guillermo Prieto resigned just days after suspected cartel hit men killed the city's No. 2 police officer.
A former army officer will replace Prieto on Monday. The army has sent more than 1,000 troops with heavy weaponry and helicopters to quell rampant violence in the city.
"This is about keeping (Prieto) safe," said a source in the city's police department who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Six high-ranking police officers have been killed in Mexico in the last two weeks as President Felipe Calderon steps up his battle against drug traffickers." [...] READ IT HERE |