Mexico Violence: Teenagers, Mexican Police Shoot It Out

VILLAHERMOSA, Mexico — A gang of teenagers, most 15-years-old, were detained after a running shootout with officers in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, officials said Wednesday, part of a trend of ever-younger drug suspects.

Police found packages containing 10 pounds (4.5 kilograms) of marijuana and a .45 caliber pistol in the pickup truck the youths were traveling in.

The five teenagers – three 15-year-olds and two aged 17 – were speeding and tried to escape, pumping several rounds into a police car and leading police on a chase for several blocks in Ciudad Juarez before they were caught, federal police said in a statement. Their names were not released because of their ages.

The government has increasingly detained youths under 18 for drug-related crimes. Last month, authorities arrested a 14-year-old boy who they alleged worked as an assassin for a drug gang in central Mexico.

And in the Gulf coast state of Tabasco, police reported that two men dressed up in clown costumes had been found executed in the city of Cardenas, Tabasco.

The two men, both aged 18, worked as itinerant clowns soliciting tips from passengers aboard passing buses. Their bodies were found Sunday on a roadside next to a hand-lettered sign that accused them of being police informers.

The bodies had multiple bullet wounds.

"This is what happened to me for being a snitch and an informer, and believing the army could protect me," read the sign.

And in the border city of Tijuana, the Mexican army announced Wednesday it had detained the local operations leader for the Sinaloa cartel, Jesus de la Cruz Lopez, alias "The Tomato."

Gen. Gilberto Landeros, commander of the Second Military Region, said the suspect's brother was detained and led soldiers to De la Cruz Lopez on Tuesday. De la Cruz Lopez is suspected of ordering the killing of several Tijuana police officers, and faces drug trafficking, organized crime, kidnapping and homicide charges.

Three other suspects, four rifles and four pistols were seized at the house where he was arrested. Tips from that raid led soldiers to seize a small airplane loaded with marijuana at a nearby airstrip and arrest the pilot of the craft.

The top Sinaloa leader in Tijuana, Teodoro Garcia Simental, alias el Teo, was arrested on Jan. 12, 2010.

And in the Caribbean resort city of Cancun, authorities reported Wednesday that five inmates – including a Colombian man sentenced to more than 20 years for smuggling a ton of cocaine into Mexico aboard a boat – had escaped.

The inmates' representatives had apparently presented false release orders to guards on New Year's Eve.

Prison director Jorge Mendoza Arguelles said the escape is being investigated, adding that "there was collusion among authorities, both in the court and apparently in the judicial office of the jail," because the release orders were obviously falsified.

And in the Pacific coast resort city of Acapulco, police reported Wednesday they had found the bodies of three men tossed into a sewer. State police said the victims had been shot in the head and in the chest.

Comments

[Sam Hassock]

02:18 PM on 02/22/2011

Wonder where they're getting their weapons from.

[Sam Hassock]

02:03 PM on 02/22/2011

L E G A L I Z E M A R I J U A N A.

It's that simple.

[jhabvala]

02:08 PM on 02/08/2011

Legalization may seem an easy way to attack the financial part of the drug business. Unfortunately, it will not bring total violence down much, and may actually increase it, since the cartels are already into other related businesses like extortion, kidnapping, murder, and other forms of violence, all of which will grow tremendously if and when the drug violence peters out and the cartels are left intact. At the present time, all this violence, which is driving "insecurity" in Mexico is basically subsumed under the heading of "drug violence". Government officials participate in the violence in favor of this cartel and against that one, since they are corrupt and weak. If they take a stand, they get tortured and killed with their buddies tipping off the cartels. No easy answers are available unfortunately.

[Sam Hassock]

02:18 PM on 02/22/2011

I've heard that before and it's like saying don't freeze the accounts of drug smugglers because they'll get antsy and kill more people. Aren't we supposed to NOT negotiate with terrorists? Did Prohibition work? what happened when we legalized alcohol? Did the Mafia spread out and get more violent? With what? Slingshots?

[dbrett480]

01:17 PM on 01/27/2011

Mexico needs to start executing anyone who works for the cartels. Anyone arrested in America that is affiliated with the cartels should fall into the same category. They are responsible for a war that has caused the deaths of 30,000 people.

[youngbuck]

02:32 PM on 01/07/2011

Juarez is crazy !

They need to legalize marijuana in America so the cartels
have less incentive to cross our border and spread violence.

[Puller58]

09:41 AM on 01/07/2011

Classic pointless debating here on HuffPo.  Legalize drugs, seal off the border, increase foreign aid to Mexico, let in more immigrants, etc.  We will never reach a consensus in this country.

[Busterman]

02:48 AM on 01/07/2011

Bring them to the US they will be liberal hero's and get a spot on the View and Opra

[MikeDu]

12:26 AM on 01/07/2011

YOUR weekend party drug money at work.

[Tewhiti]

05:34 AM on 01/07/2011

More like OUR government's Prohibition policy at work.

[Sam Hassock]

02:04 PM on 02/22/2011

Grow your own or buy local.---->Next?

[georgecarlin1776]

12:22 AM on 01/07/2011

Check out this news story from RT (Russian Times) American cable channel. It is about how the DEA bring drugs in not just to destabilize American inner cities and prop up revolutions in foreign lands but also to launder billions through the banks and expand the private prison industry they sell stock in.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2QCRX7oNBg

[rahgolf]

10:14 AM on 01/07/2011

DEATH MUST REALLY BE SURREAL, GEORGE!

[Andy Cerrone]

12:18 PM on 01/07/2011

RT is an awesome news source. It's surprising that this information is surprising to other people.

[Balzac]

10:37 PM on 01/06/2011

The government's primary task should be controlling the violence, not imposing the DEA's ridiculous notions of morality. This festering problem has to do with the government of Mexico refusing to control the drug revenue.

The government of Mexico has to be like a vacuum cleaner getting all the drug revenue into the government coffers. I said it before in regards to Afghanistan and the drug revenue fueling the resistance fighters there. If the Afghan government obstructs commerce, the resistance is the beneficiary. In fact, if the government doesn't accept that drug revenue, they're creating the resistance.

The government should not be seeking to obstruct commerce, but rather to control the bulk of revenue generated by drug traffic. Informants should be used for turning in those who are challenging the monopoly on force. Informants shouldn't be used to impede drug trafficking.

The drug cartels have too much money so the incentives are unfavorable to keeping order. Medium and large "Bribes" should not only be accepted, but demanded as system of tributary payment like a feudal arrangement. A government which abdicates on the responsibility of collecting revenue is choosing not to govern.

This can be done by having a permissive approach on the drugs, enabled by tributary payments and by focusing on gaining the monopoly on force. It is wiser to prevail by finance, and to use force to enforce the new financial arrangements, as well as to squash any organized resistance to the new order.

[NonConforming]

10:25 PM on 01/06/2011

With all the increse in violence, I'm sure millions of more illeterate peasants will start flooding north.

[krs41]

09:34 PM on 01/06/2011

mexico is a failed state...

[Sam Hassock]

02:07 PM on 02/22/2011

I wouldn't doubt it if dubious characters abroad are helping fund the chaos in hopes it'll spill over into the US. well, it IS spilling over so...taking pleasure in it doing so.

[ThinkingPatriot]

06:33 PM on 01/06/2011

Thanks Nancy Raygun!

[immortal]

08:56 PM on 01/06/2011

X2

[StansDad]

06:08 PM on 01/06/2011

I love how huffpo commenters can turn any story about anything in the world about how it's 1) entirely american's fault and 2) that america is inferior and just a bad place in general

[tjconkster]

10:50 PM on 01/06/2011

You've been watching the beckster again haven't you....

[StansDad]

11:17 PM on 01/06/2011

nope, I'm as liberal as can be

[Sam Hassock]

02:09 PM on 02/22/2011

Where are you getting that? Your post seems like a simplistic generalization that adds ZILCH to the discussion. Huffpo is cruddy. But c'mon---> You're not add anything either.

[StansDad]

02:31 PM on 02/22/2011

I apologize for not fulfilling my apparent duties to create complex, informative, and wholesome comments that address each side of every issue and really enriches the community of people that don't care about whatever I have to say, as a whole. My sincere apologies.

[realitytrumpsbull]

06:03 PM on 01/06/2011

Gangs recruit teens, because they get different treatment, under the law. It's sad, that you get kids that get roped into this kind of stuff, but it's a reality in both Mexico, and the United States. Eventually, the citizens of northern Mexico are going to have to form a police force worthy of the name, or the Mexican army is going to have to set up permanent housekeeping. Either way, on our side of La Linea, the need is always there to help prevent illegal drug use and trafficking, which is just as much an American problem as it is a Mexican problem, through community enforcement, border enforcement, and general awareness that there's an issue that affects not just Americans, but citizens of Mexico, also. It'll be too bad if the whole place, north and south, has to turn into East Germany, but whatever it takes, to keep the peace. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

[Tewhiti]

07:07 PM on 01/06/2011

"the need is always there to help prevent illegal drug use and traffickin­g, which is just as much an American problem as it is a Mexican problem"

Ending Prohibition would eliminate this need, and rightly so. Would go a very long way towards reducing the violence and weakening the cartels as well.

[Sam Hassock]

02:13 PM on 02/22/2011

But that would undercut the real power structure--- the well known and often forgotten 'Military Corporate Powerbrokers' that feed off of violence and instability.