Seized weapons linked to crimes throughout Baja
Rivals fight over 'control of region'
By Sandra Dibble
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
April 29, 2008
TIJUANA – Weapons seized after shootouts between rival gangs that claimed at least 13 lives have been linked to eight other high-profile crimes in
Tijuana, Rosarito Beach and Ensenada, authorities said yesterday.
Those crimes include last month's killings of two Mexican migrant protection officers in Tijuana's Colonia Libertad neighborhood near San Ysidro, an
assassination attempt in December on Rosarito Beach's police chief, and the November theft from Ensenada's morgue of the body of a drug trafficker
killed during the Baja 1000 off-road race.
During a news conference yesterday in Tijuana, state law enforcement officials offered some new details about Saturday's gunbattles, the deadliest in
recent years. Federal authorities have taken over the investigation because it involves organized crime. They offered no information.
State authorities said the shootings started about 1:40 a.m. Saturday in eastern Tijuana, when gunmen fired at a line of late-model vehicles parked
along Bulevar Insurgentes, a major thoroughfare. It led across town to a private clinic in Colonia Herrera where injured suspects opened fire a
half-hour later on members of the Baja California State Preventive police who had followed them, authorities said.
The Mexican media speculated that feuding cells of the Arellano Felix cartel carried out the bloodshed.
Baja California's attorney general would not discuss specifics. “What we can say is that there was a confrontation between criminal groups,” Rommel
Moreno Manjarréz said. “The why . . . has to do with control of the region.”
Moreno would neither confirm nor rule out that police officials could be among the suspects, nor would he say whether any of the 22 vehicles seized
had been connected to any law enforcement agency, but said nine had been reported stolen in California.
Moreno said said his agency has documented 13 deaths but there could be more. Only one has been identified so far: Juan Carlos Ramos Cortéz.
Authorities have found no criminal record for him or any information connecting him with a police agency.
Ten suspects were in custody yesterday, including Andrew Armando Cordova, 21, a U.S. citizen born in Los Angeles, the Baja California Attorney
General's Office said. Two other suspects have U.S. criminal records for possession and sale of marijuana, the office said. |
