Murder City: Ciudad Juarez and the Global Economy's New Killing Fields (47 page)

Washington Post,
May 8, 2008

Edgar Eusebio Millán Gómez, 41, head of Mexico’s federal police force, was shot as he entered his apartment building in the Colonia Guerrero neighborhood, a poor section of Mexico City that associates say he chose because it was close to law enforcement offices. The killing of such a high-ranking official in Mexico’s capital . . . seemed to suggest that almost no one is immune from the violence that has swept Mexico in recent months. Millán Gómez was hit by at least nine bullets and died at the hospital, a police spokesman said.

Los Angeles Times,
May 9, 2008

The nation’s top organized crime officer, Edgar Millán Gómez, is shot dead in his home, the third police killing in a week. Officials blame the Sinaloa drug cartel. The assassination came a week after Millán Gómez held a news conference in the capital of Sinaloa state to announce the arrests of a dozen suspected cartel hit men. Millán Gómez was shot eight times at point-blank range about 2:30 A.M. at his home in the Guerrero district of central Mexico City. Authorities said the assassin was waiting in the home when two bodyguards dropped him off after a long day at work.

El Diario, Ciudad Juárez,
May 9, 2008

A shoot-out last night at about 10:30 on Av. Juárez 2 blocks from the Paso del Norte international bridge between municipal police and an armed commando left 2 dead and 4 wounded, including 3 bicycle cops. Armed men apparently tried to abduct several people from a nightclub. The victims were 2 taxi drivers, German and Oscar, known to the cigarette sellers and parking attendants in the area, their bodies left on the sidewalk and the pavement. A man waiting in his car to cross to El Paso was shot in the abdomen. The shoot-out caused panic along the Av. Juárez.

In another incident, a man between 30 and 35 was shot to death in his car, a 1988 Grand Marquis, in the San Lorenzo neighborhood.

El Diario, Ciudad Juárez,
May 9, 2008

Three uniformed municipal police officers were shot this morning by an armed commando. They were traveling to Babicora station in patrol car No. 137. Fellow cops rescued them from the car that crashed into a post. The injured officers were treated at the Star Medica hospital, which was soon surrounded by dozens of police to protect against another confrontation.

El Diario, Ciudad Juárez,
May 9, 2008

Sixteen police officers have been assassinated so far this year in Ciudad Juárez, surpassing the total of 14 in 2007, when killings claimed 6 municipal police, 3 transit police and 5 from the State Investigative Agency. In 2008, 11 victims are municipal police, 2 CIPOL (Chihuahua state investigative police), 2 Federal Investigative Police, and one Mexican army soldier. Chihuahua State Attorney General Patricia Gonzalez Rodriguez said no connection was found between any of these cases. The rash of killings began January 24, 2007: . . . Edgar Valencia Delgado, 37, shot to death outside of his house in Horizontes del Sur . . . March 11, lifeless body of Sergeant Adolfo Rios Corral found with two bullet wounds to the head inside a car near Cuatro Siglos Blvd. . . . May 10, 2007, body of municipal officer José Luis Delgado Monsiváis, found inside a white Honda Accord . . . May 29, 2007, municipal policeman Ismael Cháirez Hernández and state policeman Enrique Martínez Torres executed inside an official state vehicle near el Campestre . . . June 6, state investigative agents Moisés Pérez and Héctor Macías shot to death . . . July 30, state policeman Hugo Alejandro Barrón Rangel, 25, shot in the eye and killed, his body found in the trunk of a car parked at the central bus station . . . August 13, traffic cop Gerardo Lechuga Valenzuela, 38, shot to death at the corner of Joaquin Terrazas and Arteaga . . . September 24, preventive agent Horacio Sol Martínez assassinated by thieves who had just robbed the Dental Right office. . . . October 4, traffic police commander Héctor Osorio Hernández, 43, run down by several vehicles driven by hooded men at the corner of Mina and Mariscal . . . November 19, municipal policeman Jorge Arturo Baca Terrazas executed in a Telcel office in a shopping mall . . . December 16, Transit Commander Francisco González Solano, 44, assassinated by a shot to the forehead, his body found near a dike in the Colonia Luis Echeverria. . . . December 22, officer Víctor Hugo Caldera Flores, 40, beaten to death in Colonia Granjero. . . . 2008 first officer murdered . . . municipal police Captain Julián Cháirez Hernández, early Sunday morning January 20, in the Chamizal subdivision . . . January 21, Francisco Ledesma Salazar, 34, municipal police director, executed at the door of his house as he leaves for work . . . At night on the same day, Fernando Lozano Sandoval, state investigative police coordinator, survives a shooting on the Av. Paseo Triunfo de la Republica. . . . February 5, Luis Alfonso Rivera Villa, 35, second in command of CIPOL, and his bodyguard, Jesús García Rodríguez, 25, shot to death in the Third Burocrat neighborhood . . . February 27, José Guadalupe Cruz Cisneros of the mounted police, executed in Colonia Plutarco Elias Calles. . . . March 1, state police agent Luis Alonso Marrufo Armendáriz, riddled with AK-47 rifle fire . . . his partner Valentín Ramos Díaz injured but survives . . . March 2, Infantry Second Captain Ricardo Fuentes García, assassinated in his vehicle on the Av. Tecnologico. . . . March 9, municipal policeman Víctor Alejandro Gómez Márquez assassinated by an armed group. Commander Ismael Villegas Frausto and two bodyguards, Mario Alberto Arámbula Rodríguez and Moisés Casas Camargo, injured. . . . March 14, Lieutenant Mario Moraz Cevallos executed in his vehicle in the Colonia Bellavista after leaving work. . . . March 19, Luis Humberto Rivera Gamboa, 37, machine-gunned leaving work at the Av. De las Torres . . . March 20, municipal agent Oscar Campolla Saucedo, 37, executed within 150 meters of the Aldama Station. . . . March 23, municipal policeman Alejandro Martínez Casas and his 8-year-old son, Alejandro Martínez Cruz, executed in the Colonia Margaritas. . . . April 22, three municipal policemen shot at the Autozone store on Av. 16 de Septiembre but only Abraham Carrillo Carrillo, 25, dies . . . Commander Felipe Galindo Reyes, 35, and José Amador Alarcon Rodriguez, 25, survive the attack. May 5, state policewoman Berenice García Corral, 31, assassinated on her porch . . . May 6, municipal police Captain Mario Saúl Peña López, 39, shot to death in his vehicle near the Cuauhtemoc police station.

El Diario, Ciudad Juárez,
May 10, 2008

Six homicides occurred between Thursday night and Friday afternoon, bringing to 29 the number of murders in the first 9 days of May. In addition, 3 municipal police agents, including the recently named director of Babicora station, were injured in an execution attempt. . . . The latest trail of murder begins after the assassination of two taxi drivers in the central city and a man in San Lorenzo, followed by Edgar Adalberto Ortega Cantu, 25, found dead in Av. Henequen, shot in his car at 9:50 P.M. Thursday after a traffic incident involving an armed commando, a 1997 Mitsubishi Montero and a 1993 Crown Victoria. . . . Edgar Adalberto . . . thought to be an innocent person had the bad luck to stray into the intersection as the shoot-out erupted. . . . Second homicide, Gustavo Carbajal, 40, 2:30 A.M. yesterday, shot six times by two masked men inside the La Finca bar . . . third incident, 12:00 yesterday at the Alonso butcher shop in Colonia Lomas de San José . . . two men entered the butcher shop to rob it and shot the Alonso brothers who had refused to turn over the money, injuring Ubaldo Alonso Trancoso, 45, and killing José Francisco, 40. At 12:30, another murder in the interior of a house on a private street in Vistas del Valle, unidentified victim shot 12 times, body found face down in the living room. At 12:55, Juan Nicolás Ríos Alderete, 26, assassinated in his car on the sidewalk in front of the primary school in Colonia Morelos after being “hunted” . . . at the scene members of the victim’s family attacked photographer Salvador Hernandez. . . . At 5:41, Jesus Garcia, 30-35, found face down next to a white van for sale, near the corner of Jacinto Benavente and Gabriel Garcia Marquez streets, several bullet wounds to the head and face . . . he was a parking attendant and washed cars for a living.

El Paso Times,
May 10, 2008

A gun battle on the Avenida Juárez tourist strip left two men dead and wounded five others, including three bicycle police officers, as part of a resurgence of violence in Juárez. After the shooting, a man with a gunshot wound to the torso stumbled to get medical help on the U.S. side of the international bridge.

The violence, possibly linked to a war between drug cartels and government forces across Mexico, continued Friday with a double homicide in the town of Palomas and an attempt on the life of a Juárez police commander and his bodyguards. In Juárez, there were five other separate homicides as of 8 P.M. Friday.

“The El Paso Convention and Visitors Bureau understands the recent events in neighboring Juárez are unsettling for some. However, it is important to note that historically there has been virtually no crime committed against tourists to El Paso or the city of Juárez,” bureau spokesman Pifas Silva said in a statement.

Friday afternoon, a father and son were killed in a hail of 67 bullets along a street in Palomas, across the border from Columbus, N.M., Chihuahua state police said.

Arnoldo Carreon Renteria, 57, and his son Damian Arnoldo Carreon, 25, were getting into their pickup, with New Mexico plates, when they were shot.

Los Angeles Times/Associated Press,
May 10, 2008

MEXICO’S FEDERAL POLICE CHIEF GRILLED HIS KILLER

Millán Gómez was shot eight times at close range as bodyguards accompanied him to his home in Mexico City shortly after midnight Thursday. Mexican media reported Friday that authorities suspect that Millán Gómez was betrayed by someone who knew his plans and movements. Millán Gómez asked, “Who sent you? Who sent you to kill me?”

EXTENDED PHOTO CAPTIONS

1. Abandoned dormitory at the CIAD #8 Rehabilitation Center in Colonia 1
^st
of September where an armed commando murdered eight inmates on August 13, 2008.

2. Manuel, an inmate of the Vision in Action asylum for the mentally ill in Ciudad Juárez, tried to kill his mother during an attack of schizophrenia. He lost his mind after years of drug abuse.

3. Patio of the House of Death where Mexican Federal Police unearthed 12 bodies in January 2004. An undercover informant for the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) participated in some of the killings and apparently transmitted information to ICE agents in El Paso by a wire hidden on his body.

4. Pastor José Antonio Galván, right, and inmates at the Vision in Action asylum, celebrate a birthday.

5. Military patrol along Juárez Avenue after a triple execution took place a few meters from the border at the Paso del Norte/Santa Fe bridge on May 8, 2008.

6. The aftermath of an attack on prayer service at a drug rehabilitation clinic in Juárez that killed eight and wounded five. Witnesses said the attackers wore military-style uniforms.

7. La Esperanza rehabilitation center in Juárez where addicts, prostitutes, homosexuals, and homeless people gather daily for meals. The center closed after receiving constant threats that it would be attacked.

8. Weapons confiscated by the army from presumed narco-traffickers, June 29, 2009.

9. Fifty Juárez police officers protest arbitrary arrests and false drug possession charges against fellow officers by the army, March 31, 2008.

10. A double execution in the southeastern region of the city, June 25, 2009.

11. Gang members under arrest for shooting a rival, the blood still on their hands, March 23, 2008.

12. Physicians, dentists, nurses, veterinarians, X-ray specialists, and lab technicians protest kidnappings, extortions, armed assaults, and robberies against the medical community in Juárez. The police were ineffective in preventing the crimes and were also accused of being the perpetrators, December 12, 2008.

13. A pregnant woman who washed cars for a living is caught in the crossfire and murdered during a car chase and shooting, June 3, 2008.

14. Alejandro and Refugio Irigoyen (center), learn of the death of their son, 19-year-old Jaime Alejandro Irigoyen. On January 12, 2009, men dressed as soldiers abducted the university law student and baseball player at his home. His body was discovered on January 14 while family and friends were protesting against the Mexican Army at the entrance to the military base.

15. A woman arrives at the scene where her husband, an alleged drug pusher, was shot. The pregnant woman and her three children rushed to the hospital where the man died.

16. Students, academics, and activists protest the murder of university professor Manuel Arroyo at the Federal Attorney General’s office in Juárez, May 29, 2009.

17. A man is shot at a gas station while putting air in his truck tires the night of February 25, 2009.

18. A mass grave at the San Rafael Cemetery. Hundreds of murder victims during 2008 and 2009 remain unidentified.

19. Anexo de Vida rehabilitation center. On the night of September 15, 2009, at least eight men armed with assault weapons entered the center and murdered ten addicts. A survivor of the massacre said that the center had not received any warning or threats.

20. A man sells roses in downtown Juárez.