Murder City: Ciudad Juarez and the Global Economy's New Killing Fields (43 page)

ArrobaJuárez.com, Ciudad Juárez,
March 26, 2008

Hooded men in a pickup killed a man today in the Infonavit Juárez Nuevo neighborhood. Neighbors identified the victim as Joaquín, nickname “El Vino,” 22. He was shot more than 15 times, and his mother was present at the scene. The killers shot at her from the inside of the truck as they drove away.

El Diario, Ciudad Juárez,
March 26, 2008

The number of homicides committed in March has risen to 103. This number is more than January (48) and February (45) combined, a toll unheard of in the history of the city. The latest victim, Joaquín Fernando González Arjón, 23, was shot multiple times by hooded men in a van. His mother was at the scene and tried to help him but he died in her arms and she collapsed in an emotional crisis. The victim had recently served time in prison for robbery and he was said to be a member of the Mexicles and Sorgueros gangs.

El Diario, Ciudad Juárez,
March 26, 2008

“Why was he killed?” Family members and Delta Group companions of Juan Manuel Ruiz Flores gathered at his funeral to ask why there has been no progress in the investigation. “We don’t know anything. He was a quiet person, he didn’t mess with anyone and he lived a simple life.”

El Paso Times,
March 26, 2008

One of the men caught in El Paso trying to smuggle a .50-caliber semiautomatic rifle and other weapons into Mexico last week is the CEO of a religious charity, officials with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms confirmed Tuesday. Jonathan Lopez Gutierrez, 32, is the CEO of Emmanuel Ministries, a 40-year-old shelter for about 100 children in Juárez. Many Americans traveled to volunteer at Emmanuel Ministries, according to testimonies on the Web site.

Lopez, a Mexican citizen, was arrested March 19 on the Stanton Street bridge driving a white van. Inside the van were six .223-caliber rifles and the .50-caliber semiautomatic weapon hidden under a load of roofing shingles, according to court documents. The van had been rented through Emmanuel Ministries, said ATF spokesman Tom Crowley in Dallas.

El Diario, Ciudad Juárez,
March 26, 2008

A group of 59 men accused of beating their wives and partners will not go to jail, but will have the option of undergoing psychological therapy as part of a reform of the justice system.

El Diario, Ciudad Juárez,
March 27, 2008

Elements of the Federal Preventive Police, CIPOL, Municipal Police and U.S. Border Patrol agents were deployed in a joint operation along the banks of the Rio Bravo from the Juárez Valley to Anapra with the objective of stopping illicit activities along the border including traffic of illegal immigrants, weapons and drugs. These actions were supplemented by Mexican army checkpoints in different areas of the city.

Dallas Morning News,
March 27, 2008

CIUDAD JUÁREZ—Mexican President Felipe Calderón dispatched an estimated 2,000 soldiers and hundreds of federal police to Ciudad Juárez and outlying areas Thursday in response to the continued rise in violence here that has claimed the lives of nearly 200 people in the last three months. The crackdown comes as a senior U.S. law enforcement official across the border in El Paso cautioned that Juárez, much like Nuevo Laredo in the past, faces a prolonged drug war where the worst is yet to come, a war that’s gradually spilling over into the Texas side of the border. Another 40 people have been killed about 100 miles to the west of Ciudad Juárez, in and around the town of Palomas, just across the border from Columbus, N.M.

El Diario, Ciudad Juárez,
March 27, 2008

At the Security Summit celebrated at the Hotel Camino Real, “Joint Operation Chihuahua” was launched with the participation of the Secretary of National Defense and the Federal Police. The meeting was attended by Government Operations Secretary Juan Camilo Mourino, Defense Secretary General Guillermo Galván, Chihuahua Governor José Reyes Baeza, and Juárez Mayor José Reyes Ferriz. The preventive forces will include 2,026 army troops, 900 Federal Police and 300 state police.

El Diario, Ciudad Juárez,
March 27, 2008

Polygraph tests will be a new tool for detecting bad elements in the police forces. Saúl Hernández, head of the Chihuahua Department of Preventive Operations (CIPOL), said that these kinds of controls are reliable and necessary so that the population can be sure that the police officers are honest.

El Diario, Ciudad Juárez,
March 27, 2008

Yesterday the federal prosecutor released six police who had been detained for 36 hours by elements of the Mexican army after discrediting the charge that they carried illegal weapons. Military sources had also alleged that the municipal police officers were following an army convoy and radioing their movements to a group of narco-traffickers. Mayor José Reyes Ferriz said yesterday that he did not have enough information about the case. “As the governor has said, we know that all of the police forces have been infiltrated by bad elements and our job is to identify these persons and get them out of the municipal police,” said the mayor in a press conference.

El Diario, Ciudad Juárez,
March 28, 2008

“Joint Operation Chihuahua” is the fourth battle plan against organized crime to be implemented by the government of President Felipe Calderón. Other operations have been launched in Michoacan, Tijuana, Guerrero and Nuevo León-Tamaulipas.

Las Cruces Sun-News,
March 28, 2008

COLUMBUS [N.Mex.]—Palomas will receive 100 soldiers from the Mexican army as part of an indefinite operation to combat border violence. . . . Columbus Mayor Eddie Espinoza said he was cautiously optimistic about the news of the troop deployment. “I’ve got to see it to believe it,” said Espinoza, after being notified of the deployment Thursday. “That’s great. I think it’s about time they stepped up.”

Rick Moody, agent-in-charge of the Deming Border Patrol Station, said in recent weeks it’s become common for agents to hear gunshots at night. In the past week, he said he was aware of at least nine violent incidents, including shootings and kidnappings, against targeted individuals. “These are special soldiers that have been deployed. Juárez also received a deployment. They’re generally only deployed in situations like this, where the violence gets out of hand,” Moody said. “There are two major criminal organizations attempting to control these corridors, these gateways into the U.S., and they use terrorist tactics and extreme forms of violence.”

El Paso Times,
March 28, 2008

JUÁREZ—A deployment of more than 2,000 soldiers is arriving in Juárez to take the city back from feuding drug traffickers—blamed for intensely violent murders that are causing concern on the U.S. side of the border. . . . The deployment is expected to spark more violence, but officials said they were prepared to meet any threat or attack. Officials did not say what kinds of weapons the soldiers would carry.

El Paso Times,
March 29, 2008

JUÁREZ—While hundreds of Mexican soldiers armed with automatic rifles arrived in C-130 Hercules aircraft Friday to overpower warring drug gangs, the U.S. State Department reiterated its earlier advice that travelers should be careful when visiting Mexico.

Dallas Morning News,
March 29, 2008

DRUG CARTELS OPERATE TRAINING CAMPS NEAR TEXAS BORDER JUST INSIDE MEXICO

CAMARGO, Mexico—Mexican drug cartels have conducted military-style training camps in at least six such locations in northern Tamaulipas and Nuevo León states, some within a few miles of the Texas border, according to U.S. and Mexican authorities and the printed testimony of five protected witnesses who were trained in the camps.

El Diario, Ciudad Juárez,
March 29, 2008

A patrol car from the Cuauhtemoc district was found abandoned in the Rincones de San Marcos neighborhood, just a few meters from the house on Plateros Street searched by the army yesterday. The officers assigned to the patrol car are missing.

El Diario, Ciudad Juárez,
March 29, 2008

In two days, four cases of young children—aged 6, 11 and 13—raped by family members or teenaged acquaintances have been reported. In two of the cases, the accused rapists were 17 and 16 years old and were friends of the victims.

El Diario, Ciudad Juárez,
March 30, 2008

Elements of the Mexican army detained 5 persons and confiscated more than a half ton of marijuana, 17 late-model vehicles, and two firearms in the Rincones de San Marcos and Colonia Ampliacion Aeropuerto after an anonymous tip. Those arrested are members of the criminal organization of Pedro Sanchez, operator for the Carrillo Fuentes cartel in the town of Villa Ahumada.

El Diario, Ciudad Juárez,
March 30, 2008

A municipal policeman with 16 years of service joined another four agents who resigned on Friday after the inauguration of the Joint Operation Chihuahua. Forty-six agents have resigned for various reasons in the last month.

Las Cruces Sun-News,
March 30, 2008

PALOMAS, Mexico—It’s nothing compared to the violence a month ago, says American expatriate Georgie Flores, who gave this strange tour Saturday. “There’s a cooling down, big time.” The afternoon of Feb. 27, Javier Perez Mendiola, 41, also known as “El Indio,” and Adrián Juárez Mendoza, 28, were shot to death at the Pemex gas station on Avenida 5 de Mayo, four blocks from the border. Just weeks earlier, Feb. 18, four men were shot in Palomas—two died. On March 18, Palomas’ chief of police fled to Columbus [N.Mex.] after his two deputies left the department. Two days later, two bodies wrapped in blankets were found, dumped along a road near Palomas. This week, four burned bodies were found at a ranch south of town. Flores said he saw the Pemex shooting—for three solid minutes, the street was full of automatic-weapons fire—and the bodies: “There were 3(00), 400 shots. This guy didn’t have no face no more.”

El Diario, Ciudad Juárez,
March 30, 2008

Despite the military presence, a man was shot to death yesterday outside of his recycling business in Loma Blanca in the Juárez Valley. The victim’s body, not identified by the authorities, was found thrown into a parking lot.

El Diario, Ciudad Juárez,
March 30, 2008

A man and woman were found murdered yesterday in adjacent houses in the Colonia Zaragoza, apparently beaten to death. . . . With these crimes, the total assassinations during March rises to 107. There were 48 in January and 45 in February, and in addition the discovery of 45 bodies in hidden graves, according to journalistic records based on official statistics.

El Diario, Ciudad Juárez,
March 31, 2008

Four more municipal policemen were detained by elements of the Mexican army, causing the police assigned to the Babicora district to refuse to go out on patrol for fear of being arrested by the military. For more than 3 hours, officers coming on duty abstained from going out on patrol and demanded to speak to their superiors to express their fears. An agent with 17 years of service who has been recognized for heroism said, “If there are bad elements, they should pursue them but those of us who are doing a good job and trying to do the best we can for the citizens, we do not deserve to be detained or charged with crimes. It is not fair to us or to our families that we fear being arrested or killed.”

The officers were especially concerned when they found out that the first four agents arrested by the army had been handcuffed, beaten and humiliated by military personnel.

El Paso Times,
March 31, 2008

The Mexican army and federal police have taken over the 066 emergency telephone system in Juárez, city officials confirmed Monday. The hotline, which is the equivalent to 911 in the United States, will allow federal authorities to receive anonymous information about crime. . . . In related news, six Juárez police officers were arrested for being in possession of marijuana, officials said.

El Diario, Ciudad Juárez,
March 31, 2008

Two men between the ages of 30 and 35 were found dead in different neighborhoods, their heads covered with plastic bags wrapped with brown tape and showing signs of torture.

APRIL

El Diario, Ciudad Juárez,
April 1,2008

10 MORE POLICE ARRESTED

Ten municipal police and two specialists with the state Public Justice Ministry were detained by the Mexican army and turned over to the federal prosecutor for possession of drugs and weapons.

El Diario, Ciudad Juárez,
April 1, 2008

Faces distorted in pain and anguish, family members of municipal police officers arrested by the military gathered yesterday at the offices of the federal prosecutor.