BajaNomad

Three killed, hospital under siege in Tijuana gunbattle

SUNDOG - 4-18-2007 at 07:51 PM

Three killed, hospital under siege in Tijuana gunbattle





By Sandra Dibble
UNION-TRIBUNE


3:28 p.m. April 18, 2007

At least three people were killed Wednesday in a gun battle that started at Tijuana's main bus station and continued at the General Hospital, which was later partially evacuated.
Two state prison guards are among the dead.



Definitely we're talking about organized crime,” said Jaime Niebla, a top investigator with the Baja California Attorney General's Office.
The incident began with a shootout at the bus station downtown involving state and federal police and armed men. A prison guard and an armed man were killed at the station.

The Red Cross took a suspect who was wounded in that incident to the General Hospital. Later, heavily armed men arrived at the hospital in search of the wounded man and more shooting ensued.

Authorities said they have one man in custody.

The incident at the hospital created a chaotic scene as police cordoned off the area. One body could be seen in the hospital parking lot.

Early in the afternoon, gunshots could be heard inside the hospital, and shortly afterward about two dozen patients were evacuated to a recreation center across the street from the hospital.

Hospital staff member carried babies and pushed elderly people on stretchers.

A state health official later said the emergency room was evacuated because it began to flood. There was no indication whether the flooding was related to the shooting. Walls near the emergency room appeared to be pockmarked with bullet holes.

The hospital is in the Rio Zone, and is the place where people with no insurance and little means generally go for medical care.

David K - 4-18-2007 at 07:57 PM

This has been on the San Diego news today... I am very concerned for the people of Tijuana to have to continue to deal with the bloodshed. Mayor Jorge Hank and the sophisticated police observation system does not seem to deter these actions against the police and people of Tijuana. Very, very sad...:no::no::no:

Iflyfish - 4-19-2007 at 12:05 AM

Grrrrrr. Is nothing sacred? A hospital!

Iflyfish

BajaBruno - 4-19-2007 at 03:33 AM

This story may clear up the connecton to the prison guards. I couldn't figure out if they were the good guys, or the bad guys, but apparently they were just escorting prisoners when the attackers struck. This story puts a different slant on the whole episode. Time will give more details, I am sure.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070419/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/mexico...

By LUIS PEREZ, Associated Press Writer

TIJUANA, Mexico - Police and soldiers battled gunmen at a hospital in the border city of Tijuana Wednesday in violence that left at least three people dead before the authorities subdued the attackers, officials said.

Shooting first erupted when about seven masked gunmen entered the public hospital and were confronted by a group of state police who happened to be escorting prisoners for routine treatment, said Tijuana Police Commander Jaime Niebla.

Two state police officers and one of the gunmen were killed in the clash, Niebla said.

Red Cross representative Fernando Esquer said he believed the gunmen were trying to free one of the prisoners receiving treatment.

The gunmen holed up in a ward for several hours until dozens of soldiers and federal police stormed in. More shots were heard ricocheting from the building, and it was unclear if there were any more deaths.

Soldiers were seen taking several detainees with their faces covered from the facility.

Authorities evacuated 500 personnel and patients from the hospital's seven floors, taking some to nearby private hospitals. There were no immediate reports of patients suffering injuries.

Officials initially feared that patients had been taken hostage, but Niebla later said there were no hostages.

Mexican gangs have stormed several hospitals across the country in recent years to kill injured rivals or free prisoners.

In January, President Felipe Calderon sent 3,300 soldiers and federal police to Tijuana to hunt down drug gangs.

Dubbed "Operation Tijuana," the initiative was part of a nationwide military offensive, in which Calderon has sent more than 24,000 troops to states plagued by execution-style killings and beheadings as rival gangs fight over marijuana plantations and smuggling routes.

Drug gangs were blamed for more than 2,000 murders nationwide in 2006 and have left a particularly bloody trail in Tijuana, where more than 300 people were slain last year.

[Edited on 4-19-2007 by BajaBruno]

flyfishinPam - 4-19-2007 at 04:24 PM

Believe it or not you may see this killing on youtube.com soon. I read an article on the cartels and gangs posting videos of their killings on youtube. It explained that the comments sections offered countless clues as to who the victims and killers are and who will be hit next. Police officials are in over their heads on this technology and the fact that it is blatantly being posted for reasons of intimidation or showing off. Pretty unbelieveable so I did a few searches in spanish on youtube. I did see a couple of videos where it certainly appeared someone was being snuffed out. I don't remember the article where it was that I saw the original information. The masked men entering the hospital sounds familiar like we've heard this before in acapulco and tj, remember they videoed these massacres? Do a search, on youtube its pretty unbelieveable.

flyfishinPam - 4-19-2007 at 05:31 PM

Here's the link to the story I refered to above:

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2999607&...

DENNIS - 4-19-2007 at 06:40 PM

Can't help but feel that there is an insurgency taking place here in Mexico. The cartels have been allowed to gather the strength of a resistance. Bought politicians in the local, state and federal governments enforced by their "Plata o Plomo" negotiation have won out over morality as we would like to know it.
It isn't just a rambling cartel, driving fast boats and running borders in trucks anymore. It's what the bad guys have bought over time, loyalty from a large section of the Mexican people, from the government down to the shoe-shiner. Do you have any idea what fear and money have done to these people? I'll tell you. They have made a segment of their society dangerous, immoral and fearsome. And these are just the hovering roaches.
The cartels run this country, at least everything Slim Helu doesn't handel.
It's been this way since De La Madrid gave them a pass if they would leave their money in the bankrupt Mexico whice he inherited. He said, I think through his voice, Bartlett, "Leave your money in Mexico and I'll leave you alone."
That's what happened and that's why we are where we are today. Everything went too far.

So, I have to blame...... well, who knows. The PRI ? Maybe the USA because we produced a drug-hungry country. It's amazing to me that in the states, senior citizens cant get drugs and, at the same time, young folks can't get away from them.

Back to Mexico........... This will be Baghdad soon. The insugency is stronger than anyone out of the loop can imagine and it's just like Nam. The enemy cares more than we do. Sad to say.

JESSE - 4-19-2007 at 07:47 PM

The Arellano Felix Cartel is undergoing a civil war and an invasion from another cartel at the same time.

Baja Bernie - 4-19-2007 at 08:37 PM

Have hope! The British drug dealers in China held sway for about 50 years before they were kicked out. Opium dens were a thing of the past for years................Watch out.......because the government is beginning to understand that this stuff will allow them to control the folks...............almost as other western governments have understood......................will be legalized soon.............the blue pill as in Brave New Worlds...revisited.

I know that was stupid...................but then so am I.

[Edited on 4-20-2007 by Baja Bernie]

bancoduo - 4-19-2007 at 08:40 PM

PAM

How do you get youtube in Spanish? I tried Google and every site came up in english.:?:

flyfishinPam - 4-19-2007 at 10:58 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by bancoduo
PAM

How do you get youtube in Spanish? I tried Google and every site came up in english.:?:


its an english website but if you do searches in spanish you'll see videos posted by spanish speakers and their comments below them

BajaBruno - 4-19-2007 at 11:13 PM

There is an easy way to stop all the deaths, corruption, and social decay. Just legalize drugs in the US. When anyone, anywhere in the US, can get any illict drug they want, then drugs are de facto legalized anyway. Make it official and restore society to some semblance of pre-prohibition standards.

Armed men who stormed Mexican hospital were members of Tijuana drug cartel

SUNDOG - 4-20-2007 at 02:27 AM

Armed men who stormed Mexican hospital were members of Tijuana drug cartel





By Luis Perez
ASSOCIATED PRESS

1:12 p.m. April 19, 2007

TIJUANA, Mexico – The four masked gunmen who stormed a hospital and fought gunbattles with police that claimed three lives in this border city were hit men for the city's Arellano Felix drug cartel, authorities said Thursday.
Two of the four were taken into custody after gunbattles on Wednesday that began when police stopped a truck carrying hit men planning an attack on members of the rival Sinaloa drug cartel, which authorities now refer to as the Milenio cartel.



Patricio Patino, assistant federal secretary of public safety, corrected earlier reports that six to eight assailants had been involved in the hospital attack, which he said was aimed at freeing a fellow criminal arrested and wounded in an earlier shootout.
Patino did not explain, however, why only two of the suspects had been arrested or if the others had escaped.

Wednesday's events began when police stopped a truck carrying two alleged Arellano Felix gunmen.

“There was information that a commando was going to attack members of the Milenio cartel,” Patino told reporters.

The two men ignored police orders to stop, fled, began firing at their pursuers and eventually crashed their truck into another vehicle. One of the suspects was killed, and another wounded.

The wounded man was taken to Tijuana's public hospital. Another group of four gunmen headed to the hospital to spring him, but ran into a group of state police who were escorting some prisoners for routine surgery.

One of those police officers was killed in the ensuing shootout, and another officer died when he confronted the gunmen after they made their way into the hospital.

The gunmen holed up in a ward for several hours until dozens of soldiers and federal police stormed in. Shots were heard from the building during the raid.

Patino said authorities' first concern had been to prevent civilian casualties during the confrontations. He said none of the hospital's staff or patients was wounded during the hourslong standoff.

Authorities evacuated 500 workers and patients, taking some to nearby private hospitals.

Officials initially said the gunmen had seized patients, but later said no hostages were taken.

Gangs have stormed into several hospitals across Mexico in recent years to kill injured rivals or free prisoners.

In January, President Felipe Calderón sent 3,300 soldiers and federal police to the city to hunt down drug gangs. Dubbed “Operation Tijuana,” the initiative was part of a nationwide military offensive involving 24,000 troops deployed to states plagued by execution-style killings and beheadings as rival gangs fight over marijuana plantations and smuggling routes.

Drug gangs were blamed for more than 2,000 murders nationwide in 2006 and have left a particularly bloody trail in Tijuana, where more than 300 people were slain last year.

The offensive has led to the arrest of hundreds of alleged gang members. Federal police announced Wednesday they had detained Nabor Vargas, a former soldier and alleged regional leader of the ultra-violent Zetas, a group of enforcers linked to the Gulf cartel.

But despite the government crackdown, violence has continued unabated across Mexico this year with more than 700 killings blamed on drug gangs.

On Wednesday, gunmen ambushed and killed a man while he driving along the main beach-front avenue in the tourist resort of Acapulco.



Associated Press writer Mark Stevenson in Mexico City contributed to this report.

flyfishinPam - 4-20-2007 at 07:16 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by BajaBruno
There is an easy way to stop all the deaths, corruption, and social decay. Just legalize drugs in the US. When anyone, anywhere in the US, can get any illict drug they want, then drugs are de facto legalized anyway. Make it official and restore society to some semblance of pre-prohibition standards.


Yes but that would be logical. This whole problem is a control issue on both sides of the border. Young men are being killed and women raped and murdered in Juarez and all over Mexico and nothing gets done about it. Its the women who are the strength of this society and have the power to make changes but for the reasons above they are being kept quiet (Atenco, Veracruz, Juarez, Guerrero, Chiapas, Oaxaca...) It keeps society in fear thus under control and this is the method south of the border. Bernie is right and wasn't off base with the references of the blue pill and "1984". So far its working on both sides of the border. Personally I'm F*cking sick of it and about to blow my top but unsure about what to do because folks just sit back and are relieved "it wasn't them this time"..because they're scared sh*tless. :mad:

flyfishinPam - 4-20-2007 at 07:22 AM

Oh yeah, and another thought...these problems are taking place in the border regions and on the mainland but not in BCS. Well thanks to the growth you can bet that the people that are brought here to work from the mainland, because there is a lack of workers here, will create an erupting volcano. How do you think the wealthy with their huge houses, second, third houses mind you will coexist with the poor from the mainland? I'm telling you that Loreto's "Human Settlements" will go into turmiol very quickly because of such a large separation between the haves and have nots. Selling off of lands, closing lands that are guaranteed in the constitution to be public domain, expropriation of lands, persons being kicked off the land they've worked for decades...sounds like the makings of a revolution. And then there's the wealthy gringoes coming in with their fancy cars and habits for expensive drugs. They send their employees de confianza to the tiendita to buy their "stuff". The drugs continue and they increase. So how long will it be before five masked men enter the new hospital in Loreto and start shooting everything up? This is progress? F*uck LB and all the new developments.

David K - 4-20-2007 at 07:52 AM

Pam, when will Mexico's attorneys rise to power, like they have here?

It is the attorneys that pretty much run the show and guarantee 'rights' by threatening law suits, etc.

Attorneys with big newspapers and other media behind them to get the word out pretty much ends the lack of enforcement of rights for the otherwise unheard people.

Also, with a free media the corruption would come to an end... those bad cops and government people would be out of work.

Crusoe - 4-20-2007 at 07:55 AM

Pam.....You are spot on in all that you write!!.......I personaly watched alot of panga drug running happening all around Loreto (Carmen Is.) in the mid 1970s. Its been happening along time. Its how the rich Mexican politicians get richer, and just plain and simple "The Mexican Way"... Nothing will ever change. A good friend of mine retired to Loreto in 1974 after a distinguished career as a surgeon in the S.F. Bay area. He lasted until 1994. Moved to New Mexico. He just coud no longer turn a blind eye to all the "Mexican Crap". The reality is "Like it or leave it".

Lip service

Dave - 4-20-2007 at 08:13 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by flyfishinPam
Its the women who are the strength of this society and have the power to make changes but for the reasons above they are being kept quiet



If Mexican women had real power they wouldn't be kept quiet.

In Mexico, wealth determines power.

Women are at the bottom of the list.

flyfishinPam - 4-20-2007 at 09:18 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Dave
Quote:
Originally posted by flyfishinPam
Its the women who are the strength of this society and have the power to make changes but for the reasons above they are being kept quiet



If Mexican women had real power they wouldn't be kept quiet.

In Mexico, wealth determines power.

Women are at the bottom of the list.


No DAve it is not lip service it is truth. What would any sane mother do if her children were threatened, if she was raped by uniformed guards? You have no idea what you are talking about because you can never know. Why the hell is NOTHING done about the women and girls being brutally murdered in Juarez? Its intimidation pure and simple.

flyfishinPam - 4-20-2007 at 09:21 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by David K
Pam, when will Mexico's attorneys rise to power, like they have here?


Maybe when people can distinguish between a licenciado and an abogado. :lol:

David K - 4-20-2007 at 09:38 AM

Thanks, have a great day!

DENNIS - 4-20-2007 at 10:45 AM

May I recommend a good read on the subject of cartels in Mexico....

"Down By The River" by Charles Bowden.

Guaranteed to get your attention.

If you go to Barnes and Noble on the net, it will give you a good synopsis.

Iflyfish - 4-20-2007 at 12:13 PM

I appreciate this informative dialogue. Thanks Dennis for the book suggestion.

I have voiced my position on other posts regarding the legalization of drugs and the history of Prohibition. I am glad other voices are also speaking up on this important issue. There is a cancer growing at the core of our societies and our current approaches are wrong headed and ultimately self defeating.

Iflyfish

flyfishinPam - 4-20-2007 at 02:01 PM

GAWD Dennis, now you got my curiosity going and I looked up the book, read the reviews then started reading the sample chapter. Look at some of this!!

"And drugs are as basic and American as, say, Citibank. Mexico's three leading official sources of foreign exchange are oil, tourism, and the money sent home by Mexicans in the United States. Drugs bring Mexico more money than these three sources combined. "

"A Mexican study by the nation's internal security agency, CISEN (Centro de Investigación y Seguridad Nacional), that has been leaked to the press speculates that if the drug business vanished, the U.S. economy would shrink 19 to 22 percent, the Mexican 63 percent. I stare at these numbers and have no idea if they are sound or accurate. No one can really grapple with the numbers because illegal enterprises can be glimpsed but not measured. In 1995, one Mexican drug-trafficking expert guessed that half the hotel room revenues in his country were frauds, meaning empty rooms counted as sold in order to launder drug money."

Coincidence??

From today's article on Calderon's visit to Loreto:

http://www.oem.com.mx/elsudcaliforniano/notas/n247864.htm

"Tras anunciar que Loreto sera un punto central en el proyecto que se aspira a convertir al Mar de Cortez en al corredor turistico mas importante de la Republica..."

After announcing that Loreto will be the central point in the Mar de Cortez project that will convert it into the most important tourism corridor in the country...

we're in trouble:

From this article:

http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2007/02/19/index.php?section=esta...

the Loreto area is gearing up for an increase in hotel rooms...80,000 rooms.

Then I hear of another development at Lopez Mateos and I ask, "who is going to come here and use all these rooms?" Always wondered at the hotels and large projects that sit empty thorughout Mexico. I guess I just got my answer. We're screwed

bancoduo - 4-20-2007 at 02:46 PM

A lot of projects in Mex. are used for money laundering. SURPRISE-SURPRISE!:cool:

DENNIS - 4-20-2007 at 02:55 PM

True story. The Casas De Cambio come to mind.

Iflyfish - 4-21-2007 at 12:55 AM

The difficulty with legalization is the one flyfishinPam is pointing to. The money fuels both a huge underground economy on both sides of the border and a massive above ground "War on Drugs" economy. All players in these economies have major vested interest in maintaining the illegal status of these substances, whether they are conscious of it or not.

The real truth about this issue is astounding and hardly ever told. We focus instead on the "War on Drugs" in our "Perminant War Society".

Like the US interest in maintaining the six or seven PERMINANT basis established in Iraq, once established, these things take on a life of their own and have powerful lobbies advocating for them. The talk is about "getting Sadam" or "Freeing the Iraquies", but the hidden agenda is maintaining the bases that have been built there. The "War On Drug Game" was invented by Nixon/Agnew as an election ploy to arouse "the silent majority" and sprouted a major vested interest in what is obviously the wrong solution. We all are indeed screwed in these games.

I have a good friend who used to say "start with the wrong premis and you will reach the wrong conclusion."

"War on Drugs", "War on Terror"? What do these terms really mean? They are propaganda slogans used to support the special interests behind them. Who could be opposed to a "war on drugs" or a "war on terror"? Once we accept these definitions of the problem we will necessarily develop wrong headed strategies to approach these problems.

I apologise if I am repeating myself from prior posts.


Iflyfishandlikeallofushaveadoginthisrace

DENNIS - 4-21-2007 at 08:05 AM

IFF .....

The war on drugs is real. The problem for the U.S. is that we have externalized the problem. We blame Mexico, we blame Afghanistan, we blame Columbia. We blame anybody and everybody except ourselves. How can our society be expected to wage a defense when our own warriors are the enemy? The buyers, the users, the reason for the problem........
We have to legalize it or stiffen the penalitys or it will only get worse.

SDRonni - 4-22-2007 at 05:54 AM

Will the violence ever end???

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4735804.html:(

80,000 rooms??

Sharksbaja - 4-22-2007 at 01:34 PM

That would be on par with other resort towns. Calderon will turn a cheek to any negative rhetoric regarding Loreto. His interest is tourist and development driven. In his eyes and the administration these are "good" for Mexico. New construction signals a prosperous economy in their eyes. The trip may be whitewash for those who are not party to this whole new city. Still the govt will benefit, er, I mean, some politicians will benefit greatly. It's pretty much who you know and what you have, financially that is.

Money talks & bullchite walks. Here or there. No matter where it comes from. It just appears to most this plan is legitimate but there is no doubt IMHO crimes are being committed at all levels.
Blue collar or white collar, take yer pick. Guess who the victims are? Kinda like crappin in someone elses living room and then bragging about it.