Violence, Chaos Surges in Mexico
Pastor Dale Morgan
Violence, Chaos Surges in Mexico*
By MARK STEVENSON
The Associated Press
Friday, January 18, 2008; 7:01 PM
TIJUANA, Mexico -- Rosalba Padilla thought the first shots were nothing
but construction in her quiet, upper-class Tijuana neighborhood. It
wasn't until she looked out her window and saw a sea of police that she
realized the noise was gunfire.
Down the street, at the Preschool of Happiness, director Gloria Rico
activated the school's alarm, prompting police to rush into the
building, their guns drawn. Rico said the children were terrified by the
chaos.
"Some were crying, one vomited and another wet his pants," she said
Friday, adding that the police quickly put away their weapons and
started evacuating the children.
The fighting erupted as federal agents raided a house near the U.S.
border Thursday that authorities say sheltered gunmen linked to drug
traffickers. Soldiers and police joined skirmishing that became a
chaotic three-hour battle. A federal agent and a gunman died and four
officers were wounded in the latest outbreak of violence across the
border from San Diego. Inside the house, authorities later found six
slain kidnap victims.
The gunbattle and killings shocked even crime-weary Mexico. Many argued
President Felipe Calderon should step up a yearlong crackdown on drug
traffickers and other organized criminals that has sent soldiers into
cities across the nation.
"What they need here is a heavy hand," Padilla said Friday while
surveying blood-soaked streets and a bullet-ridden police truck. "The
authorities need to be strong, very tough."
Padilla spent the shootout hiding in the closet with her 19-year-old
daughter. As they crouched in the dark, they started to think they
wouldn't escape alive. Gunmen across the street shouted that they would
drop bombs unless police backed off.
"The gunfire was terrible," she said. "It made the walls shake. I really
didn't think we were going to get out."
A day earlier less than two block down the street, police rushed
children from a school vulnerable to gunfire from men holed up on the
roof and top floors of the besieged safehouse.
Some of the children were carried by officers who crouched and pressed
themselves up against the building to avoid the bullets. Other children
ran out onto the sidewalk in groups under armed guard, their eyes wide
with terror.
"I could hear the hail of gunfire, and it was really strong," Rico said.
"I didn't feel fear until we had evacuated all 65 kids that were under
my care, and then my legs started to shake."
Residents said soldiers, sent in to help overwhelmed police, swarmed
rooftops. The gunmen refused to back down, shouting obscenities at the
police and taunting them.
Four men were eventually arrested, including a state police investigator
and another Tijuana police officer. They were taken to Mexico City,
where they were being questioned by federal prosecutors. Another gunman
was killed.
Once authorities entered the home, they found the bodies of the six men
who were being held hostage. All had been shot in the head, although it
was unclear if they were killed before or during the clash. Police were
trying to determine if the victims were being held for ransom or were
rival gang members.
Federal prosecutors said the gunmen belonged to Tijuana's Arellano-Felix
drug cartel, a gang that has been weakened in recent years by the loss
of leaders who have been arrested or killed.
Thursday's violence was only the latest in a rash of recent killings.
On Jan. 10, gunmen shot and killed two federal agents and a civilian in
the central state of Michoacan.
Two days earlier, two other federal agents were killed and three were
injured during a shootout in Reynosa, across the border from McAllen, Texas.
A day before the Reynosa shootout, three suspected criminals were killed
and 10 federal agents and soldiers wounded in a shootout in the town of
Rio Bravo, across the border from Donna, Texas. Ten people, including
three U.S. residents, suspected of having ties to the powerful Gulf
cartel were arrested the next day.