Gunmen Kill Four in Tijuana

Unidentified gunmen killed a prominent Tijuana civil lawyer and his wife late Wednesday during an apparent ambush near the couple’s home in an upscale corner of the violence-racked city, Mexican authorities said.

The couple’s 24-year-old son died Thursday in a Tijuana hospital of wounds suffered when he also came under fire outside the family’s home in the Lomas de Aguacaliente neighborhood near the Caliente racetrack.

Authorities said four to six gunmen opened fire on attorney Rodolfo Gallardo Hernandez, 55, and his wife Martha Delgado de Gallardo, 52, as they left home in their Ford Bronco. The gunmen also shot and killed a watchman guarding a nearby home.

There were no immediate arrests, and Baja California attorney general’s spokeswoman Sofia Buerba said authorities knew of nothing to suggest that Gallardo was involved in illegal activities.

The shooting incident is certain to add to the widespread public outcry over the rising level of bloodshed in the border city of about 1.3 million. Local newspapers keep a running count of homicides, which have hit 60 in the first six weeks of the new year.

A year ago, Tijuana doctors and scores of other residents took to the streets after the slaying of a respected physician outside his office. Crime is the most talked-about problem in Tijuana, and much of the violence is attributed to the narcotics trade and impunity of the Arellano Felix drug gang.

Gallardo, a former civil judge, was a leader in Tijuana legal groups and once sought an opposition party nomination as candidate for mayor. Neighbors characterized him as exemplary. A Tijuana newspaper report said the family received a bomb threat at the home last year and authorities who searched the premises removed an explosive device.

In public comments directed at the city’s legal community, the attorney general’s office vowed it “will spare no effort” to resolve the Gallardo murders.

State authorities said the attackers, in two cars, first shot the watchman, Fernando Alcala, who worked at the nearby home of the Canadian government’s informal representative in Tijuana.

The assailants, armed with .38-caliber and 9-millimeter weapons and at least one AK-47 assault rifle, riddled the Gallardo couple’s vehicle and then shot their son, Rodolfo Gallardo Delgado, when he emerged from the home on hearing gunfire. Investigators recovered 53 shell casings.

Police found one of the suspected getaway cars Thursday in a Tijuana shopping center and were searching it for clues.