Mexican Leader’s Daughter, Shot in Gunfight, Dies

The daughter of a prominent Mexican political leader, who was one of several bystanders shot during a drug-related ambush last week, has died in a San Diego hospital.

Mara de Jess Leon Romero, 25, daughter of Jose Leon Ramos, president of the National Political Action Party in Tijuana, died Sunday at UC San Diego Medical Center, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Leon Romero had been transferred to UCSD Medical Center on Saturday from the Social Security Hospital in Tijuana.

Leon Romero was shot in the head while leaving college Feb. 26 as shooting erupted at a busy Tijuana intersection.

State judicial police, who are investigating the shooting, report that no arrests have been made. Police speculate that the shooting involved two rival drug gangs.

The shooting, which at first claimed the lives of five men and wounded seven other people, shocked Tijuana. Although the city is a major conduit for illegal drugs into the United States, feuding drug gangs rarely settle their differences on the city’s streets in the midst of bystanders.

In this shooting, however, the gunmen sprayed hundreds of rounds from high-powered automatic rifles into two Ford sedans carrying a reputed drug trafficker and his five bodyguards. The gunmen ambushed the two vehicles at a major intersection on the northeast side of the city shortly after 5 p.m., killing the drug trafficker and four of his bodyguards. One bodyguard survived.

Pedestrians and motorists were caught in the deadly fusillade. Two people were shot in their car, which had obstructed one of the two vans used by the gunmen to flee the scene.

Leon Romero was leaving classes at a nearby technical college when she was shot. She was taken to the Social Security Hospital, where she underwent emergency surgery for a serious wound to the head but never regained consciousness, a hospital spokesman said.