Key Juarez law officer shot down
The No. 2 police officer in this border city across from El Paso was shot to death Saturday, the latest high-ranking official killed in an onslaught of attacks blamed on gangs resisting a crackdown on drug trafficking.
Gunmen sprayed Juan Antonio Roman Garcia’s car with bullets outside his home in Ciudad Juarez, officials said. The attack came months after his name appeared at the top of a hit list left at a monument for fallen police officers.
Mexico has been shaken by a wave of drug-related violence as gangs battle security forces and one another for control of trafficking routes north.
The son of suspected Sinaloa cartel chief Joaquin Guzman was killed in a shootout Thursday in another northern city. The same day, Mexico’s acting federal police chief, Edgar Millan Gomez, was gunned down in Mexico City.
President Felipe Calderon said Friday that the attacks showed weakened gangs were trying to counter his fight against drug trafficking.
More than 200 people have been killed this year in Ciudad Juarez, home base of the Juarez cartel.
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