Tijuana Officer Found Shot to Death

A Tijuana police officer has been found slain, a possible revenge killing for his role in the apprehension of three suspected kidnappers three months ago, Mexican police officials said.

The body of Jose Elias Santana Lopez, 38, was discovered Tuesday night in the back seat of his Jeep Cherokee on a dirt road in a poor neighborhood of Tijuana, his hands handcuffed behind his back, with two gunshots to his head.

He had gone out that night to buy beer at a market near his home, leaving his gun at home, said Raul Garcia, a spokesman for the Tijuana Police Department.

When he didn’t return, his family called authorities, who found his car in the Planetario neighborhood about 11:45 p.m., the motor running.

Police officials are very “upset and angry” about the slaying, the third death of a Tijuana police officer this year, Garcia said.

Santana’s family told police that he had been receiving death threats, which officials believe were connected to his role in the arrests of three suspected kidnappers Jan. 25.

He helped detain the suspects, but not before they engaged in a bloody shootout, killing two police officers and a woman they had abducted. Two other officers were wounded.

Santana’s death is being investigated by the state police, who have not determined the motive for the shooting, said Raul Gutierrez, a spokesman for the state attorney general’s office.

Investigators are waiting for the autopsy report and have just begun interviewing witnesses, Gutierrez said.

“At the moment, we don’t know whether it had to do with what happened that day,” he said.

Police officials said that on Jan.25, a gang posing as state police officers kidnapped Jose Martinez Velasquez from a Tijuana hotel and ordered him to call his family and ask for $200,000 to secure his release.

A week later, Martinez escaped from the third floor of a house where he was being held and made his way to the nearby U.S. Consulate, where officials alerted police.

Guided by Martinez, police officials went to the house where he had been held and began chasing a car belonging to the suspected kidnappers, one of whom got out and shot at the officers, wounding two.

In the gun battle that followed, two officers were killed, and officials found the body of a woman, who also had been kidnapped, in a nearby house, her throat slit.

Three of the suspects were detained and are in custody facing trial, including a 27-year-old Los Angeles man, Fidel Munguia Corrales, known as “El Junior,” who is thought to be the head of the gang.

Police believe at least one of the suspected kidnappers escaped.