The murder of a personal justice advocate seems to have enraged local Juarez, Chihuahua citizens and the press even in the most violent city in the world.
But subsequent events immediately following the shooting of Marisel Escobedo in Chihuahua city Friday night has placed the murder in a different perspective than many other killings in the state.
Whomever wanted Ms. Escodeo and her daughter dead appear to be going for nothing more and nothing less that to entirely wipe out her entire family from existence.
Since this writer is coming to the Mexican Drug War late and at what appears to be a critical juncture, personal perspective may color the facts but it will not change them.
Rubi Marisol Freyre Escobedo disappeared in August, 2008 and the blame went to her husband, Rafael Barraza Sergio Bocanegra. In January, 2009 Marisela filed a complain against Sergio Bocanegra, who had also disappeared.
Through Marisela's efforts Sergio Bocanegra was traced to Fresnillo, Zacatecas. Sergio Bocanegra was turned over to the authorities on June 16th, 2009. The trial in Juarez concluded in May, 2010.
According to reports Sergio Bocanegra confessed to abusing his wife and to murder, and despite the evidence provided by Marisel and others, including statements from others about the abuse Rubi suffered, his statements were considered the by the presiding judges insufficient to convict.
In the view of Marisela Escobedo the courts had enough evidence to sentence Sergio Bocanegra to life imprisonment, but despite that and after spending nearly a year in prison, he was paroled.
Current sources do not say what Marisela did in the intervening time between the time Sergio Bocanegra was released and her own murder, but it can be assumed she spent her time appealing to the state government of Chihuahua to bring her daughter's killer to justice.
That quest ended last Friday when an unidentified assailant pursued Marisela in front of a government building in Chihuahua, chased her across a street and then shot her once in the head.
Since that moment events have transpired, both legal and criminal which have placed the shooting in a much different context.
Later that night a Chihuahua state lawyer, Jorge Gonzalez, at a Christmas dinner hosted by Chihuahua governor Cesar Duarte, told guests details of the murder in an impromptu conference.
The shooter had been smoking a cigarette prior to the shooting and that was the only piece physical evidence tying the shooter to the crime and that investigators were hoping to extract DNA evidence from the butt. That words were exchanged between Marisela and her killer just before she fled in panic just before she was shot.
And finally, Gonzalez said that officials tried to detain Sergio Bocanegra in Zacatecas last July just after his release but officers who were charged with detaining him were surrounded and removed from the state at gunpoint.
Gonzalez also hinted that Sergio Bocanegra was under the protection of organized crime. Other published sources quoted Marisela as saying it was Los Zetas Sergio Bocanegra was tied to, and who was protecting.
Also Friday night Carlos Salas, attorney general of Chihuahua state, told reporters he would request assistance from the Mexican national attorney general's office, Procuradora de la Republica (PGR).
Just prior to the shooting the president of the Chihuahua state legislature, Enrique Serrano, said that he would file for impeachment of the judges in the trial of Sergio Bocanegra: Zahualcoyotl Zuniga Vazquez, Rafael Boudib and Catalina Ochoa Contreras.
Friday morning prior to the shooting armed suspects came to Maderas and Materiales Monge, on calles Oscar Flores and Sierra Madre del Sur, a lumber yard owned by Jose Monje Marroquin, Marisela's husband, doused the place with gasoline and burned it to the ground.
The suspects also kidnapped Arturo Monje Marroquin, 37, Marisela's brother in law. He was found the next day dead from strangulation.
Chihuahua state legal authorities said late Sunday night the arson of the lumber yard and the abduction had nothing to do with the activities of Marisela Escobedo.
Reports published Saturday said escorts of the funeral procession of Marisela, including Chihuahua state police, were threatened.
Justice has not been served in this case at any level. Even with the intervention of Mexican national authorities, the family of Marisela is in grave danger of being totally wiped out of existence. It is likely whomever planned and executed these crimes won't be stopped.
A demonstration is planned for Wednesday in Wednesday to call Marisela's murder a state crime. Many drug and gang related crimes are committed in Chihuahua state daily which can be called normal organized crime business.
What separates these series of crimes is the terror aspect.
Even in no official involvement is this sordid tale can be found this series of events can be called terrorism and that is the province of Mexican public officials.
#1
Wipe out the family does sound like what they are doing. Fear is the control. The public must live in fear. This could happen here. How do you manage a population so damaged. This could cause solutions that we all might find extreme. So much waist.
#1
Actually, it's the world that has been the 'sick man' consuming the opportunity America gave it by allowing its Treasury to be sucked dry in military welfare, bank and foreign exchange bailouts, the dumping of millions of unemployed and unwanted underclasses, and largely the single player in 'free trade' at its own expense in jobs and industry. Now that they've killed the goose that laid the golden egg, they'll bemoan the consequences.
#2
Not to worry P2K, our replacement, the Chinese Communists, are all set to step in and do the heavy lifting. Of course all that heavy lifting will be plunder back to Peking (always thought pandering to them to say Beijing seemed too PC).
The immense magnanimous legacy of the US in the 20th century will be viewed as a Golden Age by historians, as we return to the more commonplace human condition of war, poverty, and disease.
Time to become a regional power, close the borders, reindustrialize, buy American, tariff other nations goods, develop the untapped wealth within our borders, kick the freeloading illegals out, stop spending money of silly things and react with massive overkill to any aggression. Oh and kick the f**king U.N. out of the country. It will take a generation or two, but if we are true to our founding principles, it will work out. It will take a year or less of Chinese/Russian leadership and the world will be begging us to come back. All we should say is, No Free Lunch, Cash in Advance, and don't plan to stay long!
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
