Dave
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TJ Police change patrol tactics
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.
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Woooosh
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“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.
\"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing\"
1961- JFK to Canadian parliament (Edmund Burke)
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woody with a view
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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.
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Bajahowodd
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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.
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woody with a view
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| 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....
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redhilltown
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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!
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bacquito
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| 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.
bacquito
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Woooosh
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| 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.
\"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing\"
1961- JFK to Canadian parliament (Edmund Burke)
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CaboRon
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| 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.
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