Police officers believed to be involved in thwarted San Luis Rio Colorado kidnapping attempt
http://www.yumasun.com/news/police-64831-san-luis.html
October 21, 2010
Police officers from neighboring Baja California foiled a group of armed gunmen who tried to abduct a prominent businessman and his family from their
home in San Luis Rio Colorado, Son., early Thursday morning, according to media reports in Mexico and the victim's business partner.
The kidnapping attempt was thwarted in a series of gun battles between the kidnappers and San Luis Rio Colorado police and soldiers that left one of
the abductors dead.
Six of the kidnappers were arrested by police, according to a news release from San Luis Rio Colorado, Son., municipal police.
The targets of the abductors were Carlos Valencia, the president of a number of Circle K convenience stores in San Luis Rio Colorado and the area, and
his wife and three children, said Jesus Flores, vice president of the store chain.
The news release from police identified neither the victims nor the kidnappers, but Flores and La Prensa de San Luis, a daily newspaper that serves
the border city, said the gunmen were current or former members of police agencies in Baja California.
Flores told the Yuma Sun Thursday afternoon that Valencia and all members of his family were freed, although his wife was being treated in a San Luis
Rio Colorado hospital for a gunshot wound.
“This is part of a crisis of insecurity” in Mexico, Flores said.
The incident began shortly after midnight Thursday when disguised gunmen broke down the door of Valencia's home at Juarez Avenue and 17th Street in
San Luis Rio Colorado and overpowered Valencia, his wife and their children, Flores said.
The police news release said city police officers who were called to the scene in response to the kidnapping were fired upon by several of the gunman,
who then fled in a red Dodge Durango sport utility vehicle.
The officers called for support from additional officers, then began a pursuit that ended at 35th Street and Colima Avenue in the southeast part of
the city when the vehicle they were chasing went off the road and became stuck, the release said.
Following a gun battle, the news release said, police detained three of the kidnapping suspects, freed an unidentified minor and a woman, and seized
R-15 and AK-47 assault rifles and a 12-gauge shotgun used by the kidnappers.
Police later exchanged gunfire with other suspected members of the kidnapping group at a home at Revolution Avenue and 8th Street in the central part
of the city, the release said. Two of the kidnappers were arrested, it said, but a third escaped in a Ford Lobo vehicle, leading police on a chase
that ended at the Colorado River toll bridge, where the kidnapper was fatally shot.
La Prensa de San Luis quoted Baja California authorities as identifying the dead gunman as Jose Leonel Pulido Moreno, 40, a city police officer in
Baja California.
Police also arrested a woman believed to be part of the kidnapping group at a home in Juarez Avenue and 24th Street, and seized a 12-gauge shotgun,
the release said.
And at a home at Hidalgo Avenue, between 25th and 26th streets, police seized four vehicles, weapons and other items linked to the kidnappers, it
said.
San Luis Rio Colorado municipal police were aided by Mexican soldiers and federal and Sonora state police officers in stopping the kidnapping attempt,
the release said.
“The police of San Luis did an excellent job,” Flores said.
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