News Around the Borderland Beat

News around the Borderland Beat

Shots panic Mexico concert crowd; 5 die

Guadalupe, Nuevo Leon - The crowd at a concert in Guadalupe, Mexico, panicked when gunshots were heard early Sunday and five people died in the ensuing stampede, authorities said. The five people were trampled to death early Sunday when a gunshot fired at a cattle fair sent a panic-stricken crowd rushing for the exits in a northern Mexico town already on edge from rampant drug violence.

The dead, two women and three men, lay outside the building surrounded by crumpled beer cans and other litter dropped in the rush.

Police found a bullet casing from the shot that likely caused the 1 a.m. stampede, de la Garza said at a news conference.

At least 17 other people were injured at the fair in Guadalupe, outside the industrial city of Monterrey, said Adrian de la Garza, head of the Nuevo Leon State Investigative Agency.

Guadalupe police said the band Intocable was performing at the city's livestock exposition center when the apparent shooting occurred in a section packed with more than 500 people, the newspaper said. Those killed were crushed, police said.

At least 12 people at the scene were detained for questioning, according to an agency official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk publicly about the case. He said Guadalupe officials were investigating possible negligence by organizers of the fair, which featured live music and games.

Guadalupe Mayor Ivonne Alvarez said the rest of the event has been cancelled.

Pablo Martinez Rojas "PJ" was the current head of the Zetas in Palenque, having relieved José Antonio Estrada Sanchez alias "El Cuervo" of his command following his arrest on March 14

The Attorney General in Tabasco reported the arrest Pablo Martinez Rojas "El PJ" who was the leader of the Zetas in Palenque, Chiapas.

The AG said in a statement that the capture took place on the road Palenque-La Libertad, in Emiliano Zapata, as a result of investigations in to abductions and killings in the region of Los Ríos.

Along with the capture of Martínez Rojas was Víctor Nahum Martínez Rojas, “el Sapo”; Moisés Aarón Peñate Dionisio, Andrés Salvador López and Ángel de Jesús Avelar Martínez.

The suspects were armed with three semiautomatic handguns and three rifles, eight mobile phones and over a hundred rounds of ammunition of various calibers, for what they were arrested for and made available to the Attorney General for prosecution.

Martinez Rojas was the current head of the Zetas in Palenque, having taken the command from José Antonio Estrada Sanchez, alias "El Cuervo" following his arrest on March 14.

The detainees admitted to belonging to the group of the Zetas and they had as instructions to perform various crimes, including drug trafficking, arms smuggling and kidnappings.

5 Bodies found on the road to Cuauhtémoc

Five bodies that had multiple impacts from gunshots were located on the side of a road that leads to the city of Cuauhtemoc, right at kilometer 9.

It was people who were travelling at the place who reported the scene of the violent executions to the authorities, who arrived at the scene to find the five bodies.

Several killed in Juárez, Chihuahua City this weekend

Multiple murders rattled Juárez and Chihuahua City residents this weekend.

Early today, the bodies of five men were found at the outskirts of Chihuahua's state capital. The men had been kidnapped from the city's central supply and warehousing zone before they were killed.

Two women's bodies were discovered inside the trunk of a Nissan sedan at the south end of Chihuahua City.

In another murder in Chihuahua City, authorities had not determined whether a burned body found early today inside another Nissan vehicle was that of a man or women.

Four men were killed Saturday night in Juárez in front of the Las Cañas club at Felix Alonso and Lorenzo Aguilar in the Lucio Blanco neighborhood, authorities said. An armed group of unidentified men shot them to death.

A man and a woman who tried to flee during the attack at the Juárez club were injured and were taken to a hospital.

The victims have not been identified.

Source: El Paso Times

Teens die in Friday, Saturday shootings in Juárez.

Two teenagers were killed in shootings in Juárez on Friday and Saturday.

Leobardo Azael Andrade Herrera,17, died just after 11 p.m. Friday on his way to a hospital after being shot multiple times in the neck and stomach in the Villas del Granjero neighborhood, Chihuahua police said.

Police officials said Irvin Omar Rentería Domínguez, 15, was killed at 12:50 a.m. Saturday in a house in the Lucio Blanco II neighborhood. Rentería Domínguez was shot multiple times. Police seized a Chevrolet Suburban with Florida plates.

Source: El Paso Times

Mexican drug violence claims 24 lives in 24 hours

Drug violence in the Mexican state of Chihuahua left 24 people dead in the span of 24 hours this weekend, the state attorney general's office said Sunday.

The killings where scattered over four locations throughout the state, with eight dead in Juarez, 10 killed in the capital of Chihuahua, five killed in Cuauhtemuc and one killed in Parral.

All the slayings occurred in public places, with the killings in Cuauhtemuc occurring in a bar, said Carlos Gonzalez, a spokesman for the Chihuahua state attorney general.

The killings took place between Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning, Gonzalez said.

The victims -- all male -- ranged in age between 18 and 25 years old.

No other details about the killings or the victims were immediately available.

"This is an indicator of the incrementally increasing war between the two cartels battling for Juarez Plaza, the state's drug trafficking corridor," Gonzalez said, referring to an ongoing battle between the Sinaloa and Juarez cartels for dominance in the area. Juarez Plaza is a major thoroughfare through the area.

"I can't give you a reason why the violence is picking up the last week of April going into this month," Gonzalez added.

Some Mexican news organizations have reported that the Sinaloa Cartel had defeated the rival Juarez organization but Gonzalez said, "There is no winner to this war."

The spate of weekend killings followed another bloody week in the Ciudad Juarez area.

On Wednesday, at least 15 people were killed in drug-related violence in Juarez, authorities said.

The slayings included four people whose bodies were found at one location, another three -- one of them a woman -- who were found slain at a second location, and another eight victims who were killed at a bar, police spokesman Jacinto Seguro said.

On Tuesday, 10 people were killed, Seguro said, including three who were shot outside a supermarket. Another victim was killed outside a shopping mall.

In all, 25 people were killed between Tuesday and Wednesday, Seguro said.

Ciudad Juarez is the most violent city in Mexico, with more than 2,600 drug-related deaths in 2009. No official numbers are available for this year, but more than 500 killings have been reported by local media. Some reports have the figures as high as 810 in Juarez this year.

According to a report released in April by the Mexican government, Chihuahua state is Mexico's hardest-hit state by drug violence, with 6,757 people killed since the start of the drug war at the end of 2006.

People running after someone fired shots during the Expo Guadalupe, 5 people died during a stampede.

Categories: around the borderland beat, Mexican Crime