TIJUANA ? For more than half an hour, Analilia Zarraga and her 12-year-old son Mauricio cowered in her car as bullets flew through their
upper-middle-class neighborhood.
Windows shattered in nearby parked cars. Bullets pierced garage doors and scarred the protective concrete walls around the two-story homes.
Mexican federal agents were battling suspected drug traffickers at the same time Zarraga was trying to leave her house to return a rented video, "Mona
Lisa Smile."
Zarraga, 33, held her son tightly during the shooting. They prayed. She assured him that "we are good people and nothing will happen."
The Wednesday night shootout came just a day after an editor with the Tijuana weekly Zeta, Francisco Ort?z Franco, was killed in front of his two
young children a few blocks from state police headquarters.
Specially equipped federal agents were flown in from Mexico City to pursue suspects, including heavily armed drug traffickers. As a result, a house in
Zarraga's neighborhood of Loma Dorada was targeted.
But Zarraga wasn't aware of that as she and her family prepared to return their video before the store closed at 10 p.m.
Zarraga had already started the motor of her 1987 Plymouth Reliant, parked along the curb in front of her house. She was waiting for the rest of the
family to pile in when trucks with federal agents started zooming by.
Sensing danger, she yelled at her mother to stay in the house with Zarraga's two younger children. But Zarraga and her son didn't have time to run
inside. The bullets had already started flying half a block away.
Then things got worse.
A truck pulled up in back of Zarraga's car and people in it started shooting at the federal agents, who returned fire.
"I could hear the bullets passing by," she said. "Here we were in the middle of this."
Every now and then, the two would look up to see if it were safe to come out. At one point, they saw a federal agent fall to the ground.
"I didn't know if he had died or not, but my son had a rosary and he started to pray for the agent," Zarraga said. The agent was wounded, but
survived. One suspected drug trafficker died later at a hospital.
Zarraga saw a truck bolt away from the targeted house. Then the truck in back of them sped away.
Zarraga set off her car's alarm to get someone's attention. City police escorted her outside the crime scene where she was able to call her mother.
She returned home around 11 p.m.
Despite the damage around her, just two bullets hit Zarraga's car. Other homes and cars along a one-block stretch weren't so lucky. Children in the
neighborhood have been collecting the casings.
Federal authorities in Mexico City say they are investigating a link between Ort?z's death and the people arrested Wednesday night, though none has
been determined.
One of the arrested men is said to be a top enforcer for the region's Arellano F?lix drug cartel.
Meanwhile, in yesterday's edition of Zeta, a newspaper that regularly exposes drug traffickers and corruption, top editor Jes?s Blancornelas reported
that his colleague may have been killed by gunmen working for groups known to have links to the Arellanos.
Blancornelas also wrote that he suspects mayoral candidate Jorge Hank Rhon, because Ort?z was part of a team of journalists and government officials
re-examining the 1988 killing of another Zeta editor.
Two of Hank's bodyguards were convicted of that murder. Hank has repeatedly denied his involvement in either of the two killings of Zeta editors.
The city remains on edge. Shortly after Wednesday's shootout, the Tijuana daily newspaper Frontera received a threatening phone call. Security has
been beefed up there, as well as at Zeta.
Zarraga, who said she didn't know the people who lived in the targeted house, said her family now has a greater appreciation for one another. She also
thinks the experience taught her son Mauricio a lesson.
"It's a way for him to learn very fast that the bad road doesn't lead you anywhere, and he saw that," she said.
But the family's harrowing experience wasn't a good enough reason for failing to return the video on time. When Zarraga made it to the store the next
day, she said, she still had to pay the $3 late fee.
which one?
whodat54321 - 6-26-2004 at 04:34 PM
My new TJ map shows two Loma Doradas. They are about 6 miles apart, both on the east end of town. Any hint of which one is where the shootout
happened?
Here in the States United as Well!
Skeet/Loreto - 6-27-2004 at 05:50 AM
In the small Town of Dos Palos Calif.
2 days a go there was a "Shoot Out" between teenages, leaving one Dead on the Streets near the Elementary School.
On a recent weekend in Fresno Calif, there were 11 Homicides.
Skeet/Loreto
"In God I Trust'
Coolest part of the whole story (to me)...
Herb - 6-27-2004 at 12:30 PM
Any 13 year old facing that kind of imminent danger, and still makes it a priority to be concerned about another person's well being has got to be a
pretty cool kid.
Quote:
Originally posted by Anonymous
At one point, they saw a federal agent fall to the ground.
"I didn't know if he had died or not, but my son had a rosary and he started to pray for the agent," Zarraga said.
Margie - 6-30-2004 at 12:26 PM
My computer is as old as the hills, and I keep taking it into Rosarito to be serviced. Anyways, this was last week - I took it to the computer shop
and we started talkin about the shooting of the editor of Zeta.
"Everybody knows who did this, everybody is upset", said the shop owner.
Oh - I said - you mean the Cartels. She rolled her eyes and said, "hank, HANK.'
So maybe now he won't get elected? Or could it have been PAN trying to make it look like Hank so he wouldn't get elected?
Yes, TJ is rough, but I still love it. A place to avoid for sure, however, is Cancun. Who would go somewhere where all there are are hotels? Plus,
the coral has been totally trashed out, and it costs like $15.00 dollars to get into the "preserve".
Cancun is a hotspot for tourist abduction, rape and robbery. Also a hangout for the dealers.
There are some nice villages on the other side by Tulum, though. Probably more safe.
