Mexico confronts surging violence, as 22 killed near Arizona border
By Oman Nevarez
ASSOCIATED PRESS
3:51 p.m. May 17, 2007
HERMOSILLO, Mexico – Police chased the remnants of a criminal assault force through mountains near the Arizona border on Thursday after kidnappings and gunbattles that left at least 22 people dead.
Federal police helicopters and ground forces searched the Sierra Madre for fleeing gunmen on Thursday while state police moved in to replace terrified local officers who abandoned the town of Cananea, 20 miles south of the U.S. border.
Advertisement Officials said Thursday that Mexican army troops had joined the fight Wednesday after a powerful drug cartel sent the assailants into town.
Armed with assault rifles and riding in 10 to 15 vehicles, they pulled four lightly armed city police officers out of police cars and executed them in a roadside park.
The invasion of Cananea – a town that helped spark the 1910 Mexican Revolution when U.S. forces crossed the border to help put down a miners' strike – showed the brashness and power of Mexico's ruthless organized crime gangs.
The first outside authorities to arrive in Cananea on Wednesday found an eerie no man's land where local law enforcement had melted away.
“When the state police arrived, there was not a single municipal police officer,” Sonora Gov. Eduardo Bours said, noting he previously asked for a federal investigation of the Cananea police force, apparently to determine whether it was infiltrated by Mexico's Pacific Coast drug gangs.
“We had to take over the command. There wasn't anyone there. They had all left.”
Five kidnapped city police were found dead and two residents were killed. State and federal police and soldiers rescued four civilians, including two children, as the battle broke out.
Federal Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna blamed a turf battle between the Gulf and Pacific drug gangs.
“An armed command first abducted a police patrol, then went out on the streets of Cananea ... abducting policemen,” Garcia Luna told reporters. “It is a group linked to the Gulf cartel, waging a turf battle with the Pacific people, for control of this territory.”
He praised Sonora state officials for their “efficient” response.
The gunmen tried to hole up in mountainous terrain around the town of Arizpe, about 50 miles to the south. But police and soldiers followed the assailants, and killed 15 in an hours-long shootout, Bours said.
While President Felipe Calderón has dispatched thousands of army troops to fight the cartels, critics say troops trained for battle should not be acting as police officers.
The official National Human Rights Commission said Tuesday there was credible evidence that some of the newly deployed troops committed rapes, illegal searches and other abuses.
“Soldiers are not trained to carry out police work,” said Jose Luis Soberanes, president of the rights commission. “If you make them do it, they go overboard and we see these type of cases.”
Mexico confronts surging violence, as 22 killed near Arizona border 
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