babygirl350
06-16-2005, 11:11 PM
Posted on Thu, Jun. 16, 2005
Laredo's mayor asks Perry for help in drug war
By Jay Root
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
For years, they've promoted these bustling twin cities as los dos Laredos, -- the two Laredos. Now, as drug violence spills across the Rio Grande and tourists run for cover, officials on the U.S. side are wishing their catchy slogan didn't ring so true.
On the same day last week that the police chief in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, was gunned down after spending just six hours on the job, top officials are connecting two gangland-style killings in Laredo to escalating violence between two warring drug cartels in Nuevo Laredo. Mexican federal agents were still patrolling that city's streets Wednesday night after detaining hundreds of municipal police officers with suspected ties to drug traffickers.
"I was born and raised in Laredo," said Webb County Sheriff Rick Flores, who patrols 80 miles of territory along the Rio Grande. "I have never, ever seen anything like this before in my life."
Even the relentlessly upbeat Laredo mayor, Betty Flores (no relation), is hitting the panic button. With local police on their highest alert level, she calls the situation "out of control" and is asking Gov. Rick Perry to provide financial assistance to combat the crime crossing the border into her city of 215,375 residents.
"We're not going to be able to cover this," she told the Star-Telegram. "I'm telling you right now we can't do it on our own anymore. We need this assistance."
Flores, above all, wants state help to buy communications equipment and helicopters to aid in the apprehension of suspects. In a letter to Perry on Monday, Flores called her request for help a matter of "great urgency" and cited violent incidents that are the "direct result of the organized crime and violence occurring in our neighboring city of Nuevo Laredo."
"This violence is spreading to our city," she wrote.
Perry spokeswoman Kathy Walt said Laredo's request for a $1.2 million grant to buy communications equipment was being expedited. She also said Perry asked the Texas Department of Public Safety on Wednesday to "go ahead and increase some trooper presence" in Laredo.
"They will have their own helicopters," Walt added.
The mayor cited several spillover incidents. In one recent case, Mexican police chased a suspect into the U.S. border compound in Laredo. More worrisome to Laredo authorities are the two gangland-style killings that occurred on the Texas side of the border on the same day that Nuevo Laredo Police Chief Alejandro Dominguez was riddled with dozens of bullets on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande.
The chief was killed just hours after taking a job that nobody else wanted.
Both homicides on the U.S. side occurred in broad daylight on June 8, and either the suspects or the victims had drug trafficking ties, officials said.
In one of the incidents, a 24-year-old man was shot repeatedly at a Laredo intersection. He was from Nuevo Laredo and carried a credential from the Nuevo Laredo municipal police force, Laredo police spokesman Juan Rivera said. The Nuevo Laredo police force is suspected by U.S. and Mexican authorities of being rife with drug cartel corruption. Rivera said authorities were still investigating the extent of the victim's ties to Nuevo Laredo police.
In the other incident, a 29-year-old man with what Rivera called "an extensive background in drug trafficking and violence" went to a Laredo car dealership to retrieve his Mercedes Benz. He received a phone call at the dealership and was told somebody wanted to see him outside.
When he stepped out, two men shot him dead and drove off. The killers' car was recovered, but police are still trying to find them.
Local police cautiously say ties to Mexican drug trafficking aren't definite but can't be ruled out. Others in Laredo say it's time to recognize that the violence, like a communicable disease, doesn't stop at the border or apply only to people who live in Mexico.
In what's considered an offshoot of the drug violence, 37 U.S. citizens have been kidnapped in Nuevo Laredo since last August. Thirteen are still missing and two are dead, according to the San Antonio office of the FBI.
It has gotten bad enough that in April the U.S. State Department issued a travel alert warning of a "deterioration of public safety" along the border.
Fueling the spreading violence is a bloody war between two drug cartels, the Pacific Coast-based Sinaloa alliance and the Matamoros-based Gulf cartel.
Just like the legitimate commercial interests that have made Laredo the top inland point of entry in the United States -- and the second-fastest-growing city in the country -- drug traffickers need access to the string of highways that lead to all points north to meet the demand for cocaine, heroin and marijuana.
And they are fighting each other for control of those lucrative routes.
Federal officials say the the war began after cocaine trafficker Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman escaped from prison four years ago. In recent months, his effort to seize control of the South Texas transportation hub from the Gulf cartel has sparked an explosion of drug violence in Mexico, where over 500 people have been killed this year, according to published reports. Most of the deaths have occurred in the Mexican states that border Texas.
In Nuevo Laredo alone, more than 60 people have been slain -- including two more overnight Tuesday, even as federal officials were patrolling the city of more than 500,000 people in an attempt to restore order.
The federales were poised to begin leaving Nuevo Laredo today, to be replaced by city police who have undergone investigations, authorities said. Meanwhile, the administration of President Vicente Fox announced plans to expand efforts in other Mexican cities to purge police departments of corruption.
Back across the border, Flores, the Webb County sheriff, said he noticed the increasing violence by well-armed and well-financed cartels both at home and in Mexico even before he took office in January.
He said the cartels have been aggressively recruiting members of prison gangs, such as the Mexican Mafia and HPL -- Hermanos Pistoleros Latinos -- or Brotherhood of Latin Gunmen, to ferry drugs north and cash back to Mexico.
Flores said he has received new intelligence that extortion rackets are flowing north into the Laredo business community.
"There have been people that have been approached on this side to contribute monetarily, to pay a quota so they won't be bothered," Flores said. "These people have been approached according to what we've gathered, and have been asked, 'You know, hey, you need to pay so we won't bother you. ... We wouldn't like for one of your kids to get lost one day.' "
Like the mayor, the sheriff is calling for state and federal assistance to fight drug trafficking violence. He carries a semiautomatic Bushmaster .223 and .40-caliber Glock at all times and rarely leaves the office without a couple of bodyguards.
But he said he and his deputies need more powerful weapons, better technology and stronger body armor.
"We're having to fight people with rocket-propelled grenades, bazookas and .50-caliber weapons," Flores said. "I don't think a 9 mm or a .357 magnum is in any way going to compete against these guys. ... So, yeah, we are in dire need."
Laredo's mayor asks Perry for help in drug war
By Jay Root
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
For years, they've promoted these bustling twin cities as los dos Laredos, -- the two Laredos. Now, as drug violence spills across the Rio Grande and tourists run for cover, officials on the U.S. side are wishing their catchy slogan didn't ring so true.
On the same day last week that the police chief in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, was gunned down after spending just six hours on the job, top officials are connecting two gangland-style killings in Laredo to escalating violence between two warring drug cartels in Nuevo Laredo. Mexican federal agents were still patrolling that city's streets Wednesday night after detaining hundreds of municipal police officers with suspected ties to drug traffickers.
"I was born and raised in Laredo," said Webb County Sheriff Rick Flores, who patrols 80 miles of territory along the Rio Grande. "I have never, ever seen anything like this before in my life."
Even the relentlessly upbeat Laredo mayor, Betty Flores (no relation), is hitting the panic button. With local police on their highest alert level, she calls the situation "out of control" and is asking Gov. Rick Perry to provide financial assistance to combat the crime crossing the border into her city of 215,375 residents.
"We're not going to be able to cover this," she told the Star-Telegram. "I'm telling you right now we can't do it on our own anymore. We need this assistance."
Flores, above all, wants state help to buy communications equipment and helicopters to aid in the apprehension of suspects. In a letter to Perry on Monday, Flores called her request for help a matter of "great urgency" and cited violent incidents that are the "direct result of the organized crime and violence occurring in our neighboring city of Nuevo Laredo."
"This violence is spreading to our city," she wrote.
Perry spokeswoman Kathy Walt said Laredo's request for a $1.2 million grant to buy communications equipment was being expedited. She also said Perry asked the Texas Department of Public Safety on Wednesday to "go ahead and increase some trooper presence" in Laredo.
"They will have their own helicopters," Walt added.
The mayor cited several spillover incidents. In one recent case, Mexican police chased a suspect into the U.S. border compound in Laredo. More worrisome to Laredo authorities are the two gangland-style killings that occurred on the Texas side of the border on the same day that Nuevo Laredo Police Chief Alejandro Dominguez was riddled with dozens of bullets on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande.
The chief was killed just hours after taking a job that nobody else wanted.
Both homicides on the U.S. side occurred in broad daylight on June 8, and either the suspects or the victims had drug trafficking ties, officials said.
In one of the incidents, a 24-year-old man was shot repeatedly at a Laredo intersection. He was from Nuevo Laredo and carried a credential from the Nuevo Laredo municipal police force, Laredo police spokesman Juan Rivera said. The Nuevo Laredo police force is suspected by U.S. and Mexican authorities of being rife with drug cartel corruption. Rivera said authorities were still investigating the extent of the victim's ties to Nuevo Laredo police.
In the other incident, a 29-year-old man with what Rivera called "an extensive background in drug trafficking and violence" went to a Laredo car dealership to retrieve his Mercedes Benz. He received a phone call at the dealership and was told somebody wanted to see him outside.
When he stepped out, two men shot him dead and drove off. The killers' car was recovered, but police are still trying to find them.
Local police cautiously say ties to Mexican drug trafficking aren't definite but can't be ruled out. Others in Laredo say it's time to recognize that the violence, like a communicable disease, doesn't stop at the border or apply only to people who live in Mexico.
In what's considered an offshoot of the drug violence, 37 U.S. citizens have been kidnapped in Nuevo Laredo since last August. Thirteen are still missing and two are dead, according to the San Antonio office of the FBI.
It has gotten bad enough that in April the U.S. State Department issued a travel alert warning of a "deterioration of public safety" along the border.
Fueling the spreading violence is a bloody war between two drug cartels, the Pacific Coast-based Sinaloa alliance and the Matamoros-based Gulf cartel.
Just like the legitimate commercial interests that have made Laredo the top inland point of entry in the United States -- and the second-fastest-growing city in the country -- drug traffickers need access to the string of highways that lead to all points north to meet the demand for cocaine, heroin and marijuana.
And they are fighting each other for control of those lucrative routes.
Federal officials say the the war began after cocaine trafficker Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman escaped from prison four years ago. In recent months, his effort to seize control of the South Texas transportation hub from the Gulf cartel has sparked an explosion of drug violence in Mexico, where over 500 people have been killed this year, according to published reports. Most of the deaths have occurred in the Mexican states that border Texas.
In Nuevo Laredo alone, more than 60 people have been slain -- including two more overnight Tuesday, even as federal officials were patrolling the city of more than 500,000 people in an attempt to restore order.
The federales were poised to begin leaving Nuevo Laredo today, to be replaced by city police who have undergone investigations, authorities said. Meanwhile, the administration of President Vicente Fox announced plans to expand efforts in other Mexican cities to purge police departments of corruption.
Back across the border, Flores, the Webb County sheriff, said he noticed the increasing violence by well-armed and well-financed cartels both at home and in Mexico even before he took office in January.
He said the cartels have been aggressively recruiting members of prison gangs, such as the Mexican Mafia and HPL -- Hermanos Pistoleros Latinos -- or Brotherhood of Latin Gunmen, to ferry drugs north and cash back to Mexico.
Flores said he has received new intelligence that extortion rackets are flowing north into the Laredo business community.
"There have been people that have been approached on this side to contribute monetarily, to pay a quota so they won't be bothered," Flores said. "These people have been approached according to what we've gathered, and have been asked, 'You know, hey, you need to pay so we won't bother you. ... We wouldn't like for one of your kids to get lost one day.' "
Like the mayor, the sheriff is calling for state and federal assistance to fight drug trafficking violence. He carries a semiautomatic Bushmaster .223 and .40-caliber Glock at all times and rarely leaves the office without a couple of bodyguards.
But he said he and his deputies need more powerful weapons, better technology and stronger body armor.
"We're having to fight people with rocket-propelled grenades, bazookas and .50-caliber weapons," Flores said. "I don't think a 9 mm or a .357 magnum is in any way going to compete against these guys. ... So, yeah, we are in dire need."