SUNDOG - 12-20-2006 at 08:06 PM
Two officers guarding Baja official shot, killed
By Sandra Dibble
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
December 20, 2006
TIJUANA – Two state police officers died of gunshot wounds yesterday after an attack by armed assailants in a residential neighborhood. But the
apparent target, a high-level official with the Baja California State Preventive Police, escaped serious injury.
The attack occurred about 6:50 p.m. in the Los Lobos section of eastern Tijuana. According to a statement released late last night, the two agents
had been guarding Osiel Garcia, an assistant director of the state police force. The officers were shot while standing outside a residence while
Garcia was inside, the statement said.
The killings are the latest attack on law enforcement officials in Tijuana. More than a dozen police officers with city, state and federal agencies
have been shot in Tijuana since September.
Garcia stepped outside the residence after hearing the gunshots and was grazed by a bullet, according to the statement. “He was wearing his
(bulletproof) vest and that's what saved his life,” Antonio Martinez Luna, Baja California's attorney general, said in a live interview last night on
Tijuana's Channel 12.
Martinez Luna said Garcia had recently been transferred from Mexicali to Tijuana.
The two officers died at the Red Cross Hospital. Luis Fernando Terán Álvarez died about 45 minutes after the attack. Noé Ríos Ortega died a couple of
hours later during surgery.
The assailants were riding in a white Tacoma pickup and a white Cherokee. They fired high-powered weapons, such as AK-47s or AR-15s, police said