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Caribbean-Latin America
More Mexican Mayhem
2010-07-10
17 Die in Northern Mexico

Seventeen people were murdered in drug and gang violence plaguing northern Mexico, which include the murder of a Hermosillo, Sonora attorney, the shooting of a Sonora state police officer and two dead felons at a Chihuahua, Chihuahua CERESO facility.
  • An agent with the Sonora La Policia Estatal Investigadora (PEI) was shot and wounded in an ambush Thursday afternoon in Hermosillo, Sonora, according to Mexican news reports.

    Javier Robles Perez, de 48, was shot aboard his personal vehicle, a Volkswagen Passat, by several armed suspects riding aboard a Chevrolet pickup truck near the intersection of Avenida Saturnino Campoy and calle Tres in the Sahuaro Indeco district. Investigators say Perez was hit with AK-47 assault rifle fire on full automatic and from 5.7mm pistol fire.

    Perez was previously wounded by gunfire in the line of duty on March 24th.

  • Two inmates at the Chihuahua, Chihuahua CERESO facility were stabbed to death in an incident officials say was an intergang fight Thursday night, according to Mexican news sources. Tiburcio Ramírez Arellanes, 31, and José Antonio Lechuga Ortega, 25, were found dead in their cells of stab wounds. Arellanes was serving time for possession of military weapons while Ortega was serving for crimes against health.

    Officials ruled out a prison riot, or attempt to escape as the initiating act. The CERESO facility in Chihuahua has been the site of numerous security problems in the recent past.

  • An unidentified man was shot to death riding in his low rider vehicle Thursday night in Chihuahua, Chihuahua, according to Mexican news reports. The shooting took place on calle Guillermo Prieto Lujän when a group of armed suspects riding a convoy of trucks forced the victim to slow hi Lincoln Continental to a halt before they fired on him.

  • An unidentified woman half naked was shot to death, while three people at a bakery were shot to death in Juarez, according to the Mexican daily La Polaka.

    The woman was found lying face up wearing only a pair of yellow colored panties near the intersection of calles Terraza del Valle and Valle Azul in the Terrazas del Valle district. Investigators found 9mm spent cartridges casings at the scene.

    Three unidentified people died when two armed men entered a bakery near the intersection of calles Montes de Oca and Luciano Becerra in the Barrio Azul district and shot the owner, an employee and a customer buying bread.

  • An unidentified man was shot to death in Juarez late Thursday night, say Mexican news reports. The victim was found near the intersection of calles Chilacayote and Torreón in the Felipe Ãngeles district, after he was abducted from his Chevrolet Avalanche a few blocks away.

  • Two unidentified men and one woman were shot to death and one more other wounded in two separate crimes in Juarez, according to the Mexican daily La Polaka.

    The first shooting took place at a pool hall named El Coyote near the intersection of calles Aztecas y Calcopirita in the Aztecas district. The third victim in grave condition found with the two murdered victims was rushed to a clinic for treatment. A woman described as plump was found shot to death half naked near the intersection of calles México and Valle de Juärez near a Satelite gas station.

  • The father of an unidentified young food vendor was shot to death in Juarez Friday afternoon less than two days later, according to Mexican news accounts. The latest shooting took place near the intersection of calles Ramón Rayón and Juärez-Porvenir in Plaza de Zaragoza. An armed suspect stepped out of a Ford Explorer SUV and shot the man at close range three times, hitting him in the head before fleeing the scene.

  • An unidentified businessman was shot to death in Juarez Friday afternoon. The 56 year old victim, the proprietor of a body shop, was found dead at his shop near the intersection of calle Santa Barbara and 8 de Octubre in the Che Guevara district.

    Witnesses say three armed suspects arrived at the shop, and while two of them watched on the outside, the third went in and shot the victim. Investigators at the scene found 14 9mm spent cartridge casings.

  • An unidentified man in his 20s was found shot to death in Juarez Friday afternoon, according to Mexican press reports. The victim was found near the intersection of calles Valle Azul and Terraza in the Terrazas del Valle district. The victim had been shot three times. Witnesses say Terrazas del Valle is not very well patrolled by law enforcement and is considered a good place to dump victims or to kill them.

  • Two unidentified men were shot to death in a gun battle between rival gangs in Juarez, according to Mexican press reports. One victim was shot in his Mitsubishi sedan near the intersection of calles Tecnológico and Pedro Rosales, while the other was killed attempting to flee the assault.

  • An Heromsillo, Sonora attorney was found dead in his office Thursday morning, according to Mexican press reports. Heriberto Morales Sobarzo, 43, was found dead with a wound to his neck. Investigators could not determine if he was shot to stabbed. The victim was found in his office near the intersection of calle Manuel Gonzälez between calles Puebla and Jalisco in the Centro district.
Posted by:badanov

#7  That's right, guys -- y'all decriminalize possession, and finance the caliphatists like Al Qaeda and Hizb'allah 10g at a time. How hard can it be to stop using the stuff? Surely y'all can get drunk on beer or scotch instead, if you need to enter an altered state?

As for Prohibition, it does too work. The number of drunken children wandering through the streets went down significantly, and the numbers of adult lives destroyed by rotgut was relatively unchanged, based on what I've read. It's just that the rich were the ones who were suffering. Before, it had been the poor whose drink was diluted by everything unhealthy, just as the food supply was. Britain led the way with food standards laws, America's FDA followed later, if I recall correctly; but before that flour was often diluted by sawdust, spices by lead powder, unless one went to the most exclusive suppliers. I have a reissue of a late 19th century guide for the gentlewoman housewife, which gives instruction on how to determine which foodstuffs had been unhealthily diluted, and what the common diluents were. It's no wonder the poor were described as naturally lazy and shiftless -- they were being systematically poisoned!

What we know about the resentment of Prohibition, is due to how greatly the rich and literate disliked take the risks to health and sanity that the poor had heretofore suffered alone.
Posted by: trailing wife   2010-07-10 20:20  

#6  Meanwhile, the Sonora Desert is still deadly.

Year to date, the death toll is 153
Posted by: Anonymoose   2010-07-10 19:58  

#5  Portugeese are evil and should send more money
Posted by: Black Bart Shick7973   2010-07-10 10:59  

#4  The key is removing demand, but nobody seems to be able to figure out how.

The Portuguese have gone some way to figuring that out:

"[I]n the five years after personal possession was decriminalized, illegal drug use among teens in Portugal declined and rates of new HIV infections caused by sharing of dirty needles dropped, while the number of people seeking treatment for drug addiction more than doubled.

'Judging by every metric, decriminalization in Portugal has been a resounding success,' says Glenn Greenwald, an attorney, author and fluent Portuguese speaker, who conducted the research. 'It has enabled the Portuguese government to manage and control the drug problem far better than virtually every other Western country does.'

Compared to the European Union and the U.S., Portugal's drug use numbers are impressive. Following decriminalization, Portugal had the lowest rate of lifetime marijuana use in people over 15 in the E.U.: 10%. The most comparable figure in America is in people over 12: 39.8%. Proportionally, more Americans have used cocaine than Portuguese have used marijuana."

Yep, the answer was to make access easier, and to remove the chachet associated with branding the stuff 'forbidden fruit'.

There's only one approach which is clearly disastrous, and that's prohibition.
Posted by: Bulldog   2010-07-10 09:29  

#3  Prohibition is a disaster, but with a lot of these drugs and gangsters NON-prohibition is an even bigger disaster. The key is removing demand, but nobody seems to be able to figure out how.
Posted by: Glenmore   2010-07-10 09:16  

#2  Every time the police close a drugs factory all that happens is the price goes up.

AS bulldog says prohibition is a disaster.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles   2010-07-10 05:43  

#1  It's like the prohibition days of the 1920s & 30s, but bloodier.

Prohibition of alcohol was a total failure as well, as I recall.
Posted by: Bulldog   2010-07-10 04:14  

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