BajaNomad

TJ Police change patrol tactics

Dave - 4-29-2009 at 03:19 PM

Police change patrol tactics after seven officers slain
By Omar Millán González
2:00 a.m. April 29, 2009

TIJUANA — Municipal police patrolled Tijuana's streets in caravans of at least three cruisers yesterday after the shooting deaths of seven officers and the wounding of two others Monday night.

The attacks are the deadliest against law enforcement agents in the city since rival drug cartels stepped up a war against each other in September and the government increased efforts to capture them. Thirty-six officers from various law enforcement agencies were killed in the city last year, and 16 were slain this year.

At a news conference last night, Tijuana's secretary of public safety, Julián Leyzaola, said several groups of gunmen randomly shot at the officers, some of them unarmed, during a 45-minute spree.

“They attacked the officers they found along the way,” he said. “Their intention was to intimidate the police department, but that is not going to happen.”

Attacks were carried out in five locations by men in at least three vehicles who sprayed officers with gunfire, authorities said. In one attack, witnesses described how hooded men left their car and continued to shoot at fallen officers, Baja California Attorney General Rommel Moreno Manjarrez said.

The attacks could be related to the detention in the last four months of 43 police commanders and officers who are accused by the federal government of working directly with the Arellano Félix cartel, Leyzaola said.

For the time being officers would continue to patrol in groups to protect themselves, Leyzaola said. Today, they are scheduled to pay their respects in a memorial service for the slain officers.

Authorities said the first attack occurred around 8 p.m. outside a market in the Fernández neighborhood, where gunmen killed officers José Portugal Espinoza, Pedro Urban Almazán, Susana Núñez Valenzuela and Luis Izquierdo Ferreira.

The second deadly attack occurred in the Villa Fontana neighborhood, where motorcycle officer Alejandro Medrano Figueroa was sprayed with gunfire.

Minutes later, at the office for auxiliary police on 10th street in colonia Libertad near the border, officers Carlos Ríos Santos and Escamilla Vallejo were shot. Ríos died at a hospital.

In the fourth attack, in the El Soler neighborhood, officer Mario Gabriel Orozco Castro was shot to death.

The fifth attack occurred around 8:45 p.m. at a booth for auxiliary police in colonia Vicente Suárez, where officer Marco Antonio Villanueva Moreno was wounded.

Moreno, the attorney general, said three AK-47 assault rifles recovered at one shooting were used in at least two other homicides this year.

Although there had been a drop in the number of homicides in Tijuana since mid-January, Victor Clark, an anthropologist who has studied drug trafficking in the region since the 1990s, said violence in Tijuana is cyclical.

“After a false calm, the violence returns with greater intensity,” he said.


Omar Millán González is a contributor to the Union-Tribune's Spanish-language newspaper, Enlace.

Woooosh - 4-29-2009 at 03:31 PM

“Their intention was to intimidate the police department, but that is not going to happen.”

not intimidated? They are scared to death or they wouldn't have started patrolling in groups of three? The institutionalized system of corruption is what they created and is now what they battle. Their own fault.

woody with a view - 4-29-2009 at 09:15 PM

on another front....

we saw at least 50 trucks painted brown camo headed south in a convoy thru san vicente yesterday afternoon. there was only 2 guys in each truck and they had red flags flying from the roll cage in the back. we didn't notice any markings.

it woulda sucked trying to get around tha caravan.

Bajahowodd - 4-29-2009 at 11:04 PM

It will be interesting to see what happens next. Things had been relatively quiet recently. Could mean that the bad guys had to take considerable time to regroup. Maybe I'm grasping at straws, but aside from this awful, carnage, there could be a silver lining.

woody with a view - 4-30-2009 at 05:40 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by soulpatch
unless, of course, you were headed south and I am misreading your message.
Quote:
Originally posted by woody in ob
on another front....

we saw at least 50 trucks painted brown camo headed south in a convoy thru san vicente yesterday afternoon. there was only 2 guys in each truck and they had red flags flying from the roll cage in the back. we didn't notice any markings.

it woulda sucked trying to get around tha caravan.


[Edited on 4-30-2009 by soulpatch]



we were headed north....

redhilltown - 4-30-2009 at 09:48 PM

I never thought I'd feel sorry for the TJ police but this really sucks. Something has got to change because the Mexican army cannot stay around forever unless you want a country under martial law............hey! not a bad idea!

bacquito - 5-2-2009 at 09:35 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by redhilltown
I never thought I'd feel sorry for the TJ police but this really sucks. Something has got to change because the Mexican army cannot stay around forever unless you want a country under martial law............hey! not a bad idea!


Sadly, it might come to that.

Woooosh - 5-2-2009 at 09:49 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bajahowodd
It will be interesting to see what happens next. Things had been relatively quiet recently. Could mean that the bad guys had to take considerable time to regroup. Maybe I'm grasping at straws, but aside from this awful, carnage, there could be a silver lining.


The "problem" has moved to the neighborhood level where they are putting the screws to the everyday Mexicans. They are basically taking over each barrio on at a time and commit petty crimes as well as discount express kidnappings and extortions. This is the best the Mexican gov't can hope for becasue the police aren't afraid to interact with these guys- right back to where we were three years ago IMHO.

CaboRon - 5-3-2009 at 05:57 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by bacquito
Quote:
Originally posted by redhilltown
I never thought I'd feel sorry for the TJ police but this really sucks. Something has got to change because the Mexican army cannot stay around forever unless you want a country under martial law............hey! not a bad idea!


Sadly, it might come to that.


When a country is out of control marshall law is a reasonable solution.