Murder City_ Ciudad Juarez and the Global Economy's New Killing Fields - Charles Bowden [144]
El Diario, Ciudad Juárez, May 6, 2008
13 HOMICIDES IN 5 DAYS
A man between 19 and 22 years of age was shot to death in the Colonia Durango, the 13th murder victim during the first 5 days of May. Salvador García Espinoza, 20, shot May 1 on the Juárez-Porvenir highway. Former municipal policeman, Sergio Antonio Lagarde Félix, shot in the head near the Sanctuary of San Lorenzo on May 2. Shriveled body of a woman found May 2 in the afternoon near the Campo del Tiro. That same night, Benjamín Gamboa Acosta, 28, shot to death in Colonia Revolucion Mexicana. Also that night, Eva Lorena Hernández, 34, killed by multiple gunshots at the Kit-Kat bar, where she worked. Saturday May 3, Alberto Hernández Pérez, alias “El Gordo,” shot to death in the Colonia Benito Juárez. Later José Inés González Carrillo, shot to death in the Colonia Salvárcar. Sunday, May 4 before dawn, José Manuel Mijares Ortega, 55, assassinated outside his house in the Colonia Morelos III. Same day at 6:30 A.M., Valentín Quiñónez Ibáñez, intending to commit suicide, was shot by municipal police. That afternoon, Héctor Carrillo Soto, 21, shot in the back by Federal Police in the Valle de Juárez. Lorenzo Juárez Aguayo, 29, Agustín Damián Navarrete, 38, assassinated at the entrance of the State Office of Public Security headquarters. May 5, 3:00 A.M., an unidentified man shot to death in Colonia Durango.
El Diario, Ciudad Juárez, May 7, 2008
Municipal Public Security Captain Saúl Peña López was shot last night at about 8:30 and died this morning from his injuries.
Reuters, May 7, 2008
CIUDAD JUÁREZ—Mexican drug hit men killed a senior police officer in Ciudad Juárez despite a huge army deployment in the violent city across the border from El Paso, Texas. Gunmen with assault rifles on Tuesday night shot Saul Pena, who was due to be named one of city’s five police commanders. “It seems they were waiting for him,” said police spokesman Jaime Torres. “They shot him with AK-47s in the back, the stomach and the leg. He died in hospital this morning.”
Associated Press, May 7, 2008
CHIHUAHUA—New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson said Wednesday that he has seen an improvement in security along the U.S.-Mexico border. “In my opinion, there has been a dramatic improvement in the last two months,” Richardson told reporters in Chihuahua, where he met with Chihuahua Gov. Jesus Reyes Baeza.
El Diario, Ciudad Juárez, May 8, 2008
Luis Alberto Mata Olivas, 37, was shot nine times inside of his house by four masked men. The gunmen forced Olivas’s wife and three children upstairs before shooting the victim in the kitchen. . . . Their getaway vehicle, a green Chrysler Grand Cherokee, was found abandoned near the scene.
El Diario, Ciudad Juárez, May 8, 2008
Reynaldo Longoria Ruíz, 68, a shopkeeper in the Valle de Juárez, was shot to death by AK-47 rifle fire last night, inside his store in the village of Praxedis Guerrero. According to witnesses, 2 masked men entered his store, shot him and then fled the scene in a late-model brown and green Blazer. Unofficial sources said the victim had received death threats on at least 3 occasions. He was known in the Valle as “El Caiman”—Alligator. This case brings to 20 the number of homicides in the first 8 days of May.
Washington Post, May 8, 2008
Edgar Eusebio Millán Gómez, 41, head of Mexico’s federal police force, was shot as he entered his apartment building in the Colonia Guerrero neighborhood, a poor section of Mexico City that associates say he chose because it was close to law enforcement offices. The killing of such a high-ranking official in Mexico’s capital . . . seemed to suggest that almost no one is immune from the violence that has swept Mexico in recent months. Millán Gómez was hit by at least nine bullets and died at the hospital, a police spokesman said.
Los Angeles Times, May 9, 2008
The nation’s top organized crime officer, Edgar Millán Gómez, is shot dead in his home, the third police killing in a week. Officials blame the Sinaloa drug cartel. The assassination came a week after