Mexico Trucker Online

MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s top security official blamed organized crime for the brazen killing of an acting federal police chief, saying today his death shows a nationwide crackdown is hurting gangs.

Public Safety Secretary General Garcia Luna said authorities would not be deterred by an onslaught of attacks against police as he presided over the funeral of Edgar Gomez Millan and two other federal officers killed this week.

Millan, 41, was shot 10 times early Thursday by gunmen who waited for him inside the courtyard of his Mexico City apartment complex. His two bodyguards were wounded.

The two other officers were killed Wednesday in a shootout with suspected drug traffickers in southern Morelos state.

The “attacks by organized crime against federal police in the last few days are in response to their interests being affected,” Garcia Luna said as he stood near the three coffins guarded by heavily armed agents wearing bulletproof vests. “But we will not be intimidated.”

President Felipe Calderon attended the funeral, hugging Millan’s sobbing wife and handing her a folded Mexican flag. He did not speak publicly.

Millan was responsible for coordinating operations — many of them targeting drugs — between federal police and the army. He was named acting chief March 1 after his superior was promoted to a deputy Cabinet position.

On May 1, he announced the arrest of 12 suspected hit men tied to the Sinaloa cartel.

Hours later, a federal intelligence analyst was killed in Mexico City by assailants who tried to steal his car, and a federal commander was gunned down the next day.

Police would not comment on whether the Sinaloa cartel was behind Millan’s killing, but said they were investigating possible drug links. Police were interrogating two suspects, including one of the alleged gunmen.

Since taking office in 2006, Calderon has sent more than 25,000 troops to drug hotspots. Cartels have responded with unprecedented violence, beheading police and killing soldiers. Drug-related violence killed more than 2,500 people last year alone.

In Washington, Thomas Shannon, the U.S. assistant secretary for Western Hemisphere affairs, urged Congress to approve the Merida Initiative, a US$1.4 billion (euro0.91 billion) proposal to help fight drug crime in Mexico and Central America. The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush wants Congress to approve US$550 million (euro355 million) of the package, the majority of which would go to Mexico.

“Central America and Mexico are facing public security threats of tremendous proportions,” Shannon told the House Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere. “The leaders of the region have shown that they are committed to working together to put an end to the growing violence and crime, but their resources are limited.”

NUEVO LAREDO - The federal government is taking no chances on seeing a recurrence of the drug-fueled violence that once plagued this major land port, sending additional military troops and federal police to the area.

After the deadly confrontation earlier this week among police, soldiers and para-military criminal squads in the Rio Bravo Valley cities of Río Bravo and Reynosa, federal authorities dispatched an unspecified number of extra soldiers and federal agents to cities all along the Tamaulipas-Texas border, including Matamoros, across from Brownsville; Reynosa, near McAllen; Río Bravo, across from Donna; Miguel Alemán, across from Roma; and Nuevo Laredo.

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NUEVO LAREDO — In a much-needed show of force, agents with the Agencia Federal de Investigaciones (AFI, similar to the FBI) and federal highway police set up a checkpoint Friday on the Bulevar Ribereño for vehicles headed to the Juárez-Lincoln International Bridge.Every vehicle was stopped and searched.
It was a welcome sight for many Nuevo Laredoans as well as city and state leaders, a day after there was a report of a gun battle Thursday that left one man dead in Los Torres subdivision. The body was removed before police could arrive.

Tamaulipas Gov. Eugenio Hernández Flores, in Monterrey to inaugurate Casa Tamaulipas, said Friday the efforts of federal police and the Mexican Army are welcome and should bring peace to Mexico.

“The federal agents and the Army are fighting organized crime and are giving no quarter,” the governor said. “There are orders from the President of México, Felipe Calderón, not to yield a single centimeter.”

Hernández Flores said he stands in solidarity with Calderón’s action because he is fulfilling his commitment to the people.

Officials said the checkpoints will be seen throughout the city, as agents and soldiers verify whether drivers have legal possession of their vehicles, whether they are carrying illegal arms or drugs, and checking IDs to look for outstanding federal warrants.

The latest group of agents arrived from Mexico City on Wednesday and promptly set up a checkpoint on Bulevar Luis Donaldo Colosio, at the entrance of the Fundadores-Infonavit neighborhood in the south part of the city.

One of the officers said they weren’t authorized to talk to the media about their operation, saying that the federal attorney general’s office or someone from federal police headquarters in Mexico City would be releasing a statement. None, however, was forthcoming Friday.

For his part, Infonavit resident Fabian García, who was one of the drivers stopped at that checkpoint, said he was pleased that the federal authorities are finally taking on its responsibility to protect people along the border.

Many drivers were surprised when they came up on the checkpoint and found themselves directed to wait in line as agents conducted the generally routine inspections. As officers searched the vehicles, others stood with arms at the ready, stern and alert.

The high level of precautions match the level of aggression exhibited by organized crime lords as they seek to frighten law enforcement.

The most recent attack occurred in Hermosillo, in the state of Sonora, where armed commandos attacked police officers in a brutal five-hour exchange of gunfire, ending with the deaths of 15 attackers and five officers.

In the state of Nuevo León, police officers, commanders and high-ranking law enforcement officials have been assassinated. In Nuevo Laredo, law officers also have been the victims of brutal attacks.

The show of force around Nuevo Laredo is promoting confidence among the residents, who have seen at least eight executions, including the one Thursday, in recent days.

Another woman who passed inspection at one of the checkpoints said that at least the federal officers are seen in public, patrolling and staffing checkpoints, which helps dissuade those who would commit a crime.

Meanwhile, in the Monterrey metropolitan area, the bodies of three more men were found at about 7 a.m. Friday. That brings the total number of homicides attributed to organized crime to 64 so far this year.