tagged w/ Mexican Drug War
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Why aren't we addressing this? It was on the news again last night. David Spade actually donated $100,000 to the Phoenix Police Dept to buy sophisticated weapons so they could compete with the drug cartels. They chop off heads, hands, feet during home invasions. Its getting worse every day and the Police are on permanent overtime until further notice.
HELLO??? Anyone HOME??? Can we send some HELP?Why aren't we addressing this? It was on the news again last night. David Spade... more
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More than 200 American citizens have been killed since 2004 in Mexico’s escalating wave of violence, amounting to the highest number of unnatural deaths in any foreign country outside military combat zones, according to the U.S. State Department.
The deaths included a 22-year-old Houston man and his 16-year-old friend who were hauled out of a minivan and shot execution style. They also included a 65-year-old nurse from Brownsville found floating in the Rio Grande after visiting a Mexican beauty salon and a retiree stabbed to death while camping on a Baja beach, reported the Houston Chronicle in a story published Sunday, which examined hundreds of records related to the deaths.
Read and Discuss....More than 200 American citizens have been killed since 2004 in Mexico’s... more
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"Masked gunmen in Mexico have fired several shots and thrown a grenade at a television station as it broadcast its main evening news bulletin.
No-one was injured in the attack on the Televisa network's station in the northern city of Monterrey.
A message was left warning the station about its coverage of drugs violence.
Since 2006, 15 journalists have been killed in Mexico and many local newspapers have stopped investigative reporting of the drugs cartels.
This attack is believed to be the first on a Mexican TV station.
The Televisa network was broadcasting its main evening news bulletin when a presenter announced that the station was under attack.
Outside, two cars had pulled up. Several gunmen wearing ski masks sprayed the main entrance to the building with bullets.
A grenade was also thrown which exploded in an empty workshop.
A note was left nearby, reading 'Stop just reporting on us, report on the narco's political leaders' - an apparent reference to the Mexican government.
President Felipe Calderon has vowed to destroy the cartels which make billions of dollars trafficking cocaine and other drugs to the United States.
The strategy has led to spiralling violence - with cartels fighting both each other, and government forces.""Masked gunmen in Mexico have fired several shots and thrown a grenade at a... more
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The suspects, believed to have ties to Mexico's Gulf cartel, were arrested in raids this week in a dozen U.S. states.[more]The suspects, believed to have ties to Mexico's Gulf cartel, were arrested in... more
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U.S. officials have arrested a man in East Los Angeles who is suspected in the gruesome 1998 killing of 19 men, women and children in Baja California, one of the bloodiest episodes of drug violence in Mexican history.[more]U.S. officials have arrested a man in East Los Angeles who is suspected in the... more
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Ruben Rios Estrada, nicknamed 'El Pit,' is a reputed enforcer for the Arellano Felix cocaine ring. Agents stormed the gambling tables at the Agua Caliente racetrack. [more]Ruben Rios Estrada, nicknamed 'El Pit,' is a reputed enforcer for the... more
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Mexican Congressman David Figueroa already had survived two assassination tries when federal intelligence officials passed the news to him: They'd heard that another attempt soon would be made.
Figueroa took it seriously. He dropped out of the race for governor of Sonora state, and, with the help of Mexico's president, was quickly confirmed last week as the country's new consul general in San Jose, Calif. Almost as quickly, Figueroa, an up-and-coming politician in the president's political party, relocated.
While drug cartels have long targeted local police officials, they're now striking at higher-level officials, particularly those close to President Felipe Calderón, who has made curbing the drug trade a central policy of his administration.
In recent months, gunmen thought to be tied to cartels have killed the national police chief, Edgar Eusebio Millán Gómez, and Roberto Velasco Bravo, who headed the organized-crime unit of the federal police. Calderón appointed both men to their posts.
A cousin of Calderón's wife was killed and stuffed into the trunk of a car in Mexico City 10 days into Calderón's term, in what was seen as a message from cartels.
In March of last year, Calderón revealed that he and his family had received threats from cartel leaders.
U.S. law-enforcement officials, demanding anonymity given the sensitivity of the issue, say they think that the recent killings are an effort to turn up the heat on Calderón, who has undertaken the most concerted offensive against the drug cartels by a Mexican president.
"There is a strategic focus on sending messages to high-level officials within the government," said a U.S. law-enforcement official familiar with Mexico's drug war. By the count of two leading Mexican newspapers, there have been at least 2,400 drug-related murders nationwide already this year. That almost equals the roughly 2,500 drug-related killings for all of 2007.
Many Mexicans, however, question whether the explosion of violence is worth the effort to crack down on what's widely seen as a U.S. problem.Mexican Congressman David Figueroa already had survived two assassination tries when... more
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Police found six charred bodies, one still on fire, dumped on a street in the northern Mexican city of Tijuana today, in the latest brutal killing on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Tijuana is one of the most gruesome fronts in Mexico's three-way war between rival drug cartels and security forces, as Mexico's most-wanted man Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman tries to wrestle control of smuggling routes into California from the city's long dominant Arellano Felix cartel.
Following two months of relative quiet in Tijuana, across the border from San Diego, California, drug murders and kidnappings are rising again. Shootouts between drug gangs have killed some 300 people in the city this year, making up a chunk of the more than 1,700 drug murder victims across Mexico since the start of 2008.
Today's burnt bodies were found two days after suspected drug hitmen in southern Mexico dumped a severed human head inside a black bag in the tourist city of Oaxaca, along with a threatening message for Mexican law enforcement.
Police found six charred bodies, one still on fire, dumped on a street in the northern... more
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In the past two years, 15 mexican musicians have been murdered. Their crime: to fall foul of the country's drug barons. Ioan Grillo reports
It was three in the morning and the Mexican group Banda Guasavena were driving back from a concert at a cockfighting festival, just over the border from Texas. The audience had been even more rapturous than usual and Fausto Castro-Elizalde, the band's horn player, recalls them chatting happily about the evening.
Then Kalashnikov bullets started flying through the window. 'The whole moment was unreal,' he says. 'One second we were all happy after the show. The next we being cut up by bullets.'
Castro-Elizalde, 34, was hit by seven 'caps' in his arm and legs but miraculously remained conscious. His cousin and the band's 27-year old singer, Valentin Elizalde, was not so lucky. 'He died instantly. He fell into my arms and I kissed him,' says Castro-Elizalde.
Elizalde's murder is not an isolated incident. In the past two years, assassins have shot, burnt or suffocated at least 15 Mexican musicians. The latest victim was sprayed with 20 bullets as he sang alongside his band, Brisas del Mar, at a dance near the Acapulco resort in March. In December, three entertainers were killed in a week: one singer was kidnapped, throttled and dumped on a road, a trumpeter was found with a bag on his head and a diva was shot dead in her hospital bed.
The attacks on musicians come amid a wave of bloodshed in Mexico, which has usurped Colombia as the drug trafficking capital of the Americas, unleashing violent turf wars and fighting with police. For their part, Mexican musicians have been increasingly singing about cocaine, corpses and Kalashnikovs alongside their traditional tales of poverty and lost love. In the past two years, 15 mexican musicians have been murdered. Their crime: to fall... more
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The violence in Mexico is spiraling out of control--seven federal officers were killed and four more injured as the drug war continues to escalate. The police were conducting a drug raid on a home when they were attacked. More than 1,000 people have died from drug-related violence since the start of the year. The violence in Mexico is spiraling out of control--seven federal officers were killed... more
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Many Mexican drug cartels are utilizing the loose gun laws in many south eastern states to purchase assault weapons that are used in the Mexican drug war. Assault weapons are illegal to the general public in Mexico, so many Mexican drug moguls are smuggling weapons from the United States across the border into Mexico. Many of the Mexican authorities are ill-equipped to defend themselves against the powerful assault weapons and have consequently lost over 2000 police officers.
Watch the video to get the full report. Many Mexican drug cartels are utilizing the loose gun laws in many south eastern... more
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