2 Arrested in Tijuana Slaying of U.S. Resident
Mexican police arrested a young man and a teenager Wednesday in the shooting death of a factory manager during an apparent carjacking attempt.
Police said the two were arrested after city, state and federal officers swept through the neighborhood where the shooting occurred and turned up several witnesses who led them to the younger suspect.
The teenager later confessed to the killing of Jiro Sasayama and implicated the other suspect as the gunman, the state attorney general said. Neither suspect was identified.
Sasayama, 50, was an experienced factory manager who moved easily between his home in California and his company’s Tijuana plant with no apparent fear of the border city’s reputation for violence.
But Mexican police said Sasayama was killed Tuesday after the suspects tried to force him out of his car at a traffic light outside an industrial park in Tijuana. The older suspect allegedly shot Sasayama when he resisted.
Mario Antonio De la Fuente, the attorney general for Baja California, said the suspects apparently chose Sasayama at random.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
