US official, spouse shot to death in Juarez

[Angelhair]

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico - A U.S. Consulate official and her husband were gunned down here within sight of the border with their baby in the back seat, officials said Sunday.

President Obama expressed outrage over the killings, and Mexican President Felipe Calderón promised a swift investigation.

Several U.S. citizens have been killed in Mexico's drug war, most of them people with family ties to Mexico. However, it's rare for American government employees to be targeted.






US official, spouse shot to death in Juarez

 

[waltky]

Ain't nowhere safe in Juarez now...

‘Safe corridors’ in Ciudad Juarez have collapsed: residents
Tue, Mar 15, 2011 - A highly touted project to bring a little peace back to the violence-wracked border city of Ciudad Juarez with “safe corridors” along main streets has largely collapsed with a change in policing, residents and officials said.

Crime initially plummeted along the two boulevards after federal troops began intensive patrols there in February last year as part of the “We are all Juarez” program, aimed at improving living conditions in what has become one of the world’s most murderous cities, but federal police handed the duty off to state police, which in November turned the job over to the city. Residents say patrols have almost vanished. Shootouts, killings and kidnappings have returned. “Crime is up fivefold in those zones,” said Gustavo de la Rosa, head of the Ciudad Juarez office of Mexico’s National Commission on Human Rights. “We are, for the moment, abandoned.”

The “safe corridor” designation — along the boulevards Gomez Morin and Tomas Fernandez — was meant to revive business in the commercial zones lined with local businesses, nightclubs and chain stores. On Friday, a professor of anthropology at Northern Arizona University was briefly kidnapped along one of the corridors, Gomez Morin, and was forced to withdraw money from automatic teller machines. A man was shot do death in his car the same day. Witnesses told local reporters police were slow to appear.

Police spokesman Adrian Sanchez confirmed that the municipal force has taken charge of the corridors, but said it is not providing any special protection for the area beyond visiting businesses. “They keep calling it a safe corridor, but we have no idea how that works,” said Jove Garcia, who oversees a student orchestra that meets along one of the corridors. The safe routes were part of the federal plan announced by Mexican President Felipe Calderon to attack crime with better security, health, education and economic conditions in the city of 1.3 million across the border from El Paso, Texas.

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[LilOlLady]

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico - A U.S. Consulate official and her husband were gunned down here within sight of the border with their baby in the back seat, officials said Sunday.

President Obama expressed outrage over the killings, and Mexican President Felipe Calderón promised a swift investigation.

Several U.S. citizens have been killed in Mexico's drug war, most of them people with family ties to Mexico. However, it's rare for American government employees to be targeted.






US official, spouse shot to death in Juarez

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