Seven Gunned Down in Northern Mexico

Latin American Herald Tribune
http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=470351&CategoryId=14091

MONTERREY, Mexico – Four men and three women were gunned down Sunday in Torreon, one of the largest cities in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila, prosecutors said.

The shooting occurred in Vicente Guerrero, a poor neighborhood in the southern section of Torreon, the Coahuila state Attorney General’s Office said.

“In the incident reported, it has been confirmed that four males and three females died,” the AG’s office said.

The “bodies of five people were found inside a vehicle,” the AG’s office said.

It is not clear whether the victims were killed in a shootout between rival gangs or dumped in the neighborhood.

A bulletin was issued after gunfire was reported, but no arrests have been made.

The Sinaloa and Los Zetas drug cartels have been fighting for control of Torreon, resulting in a series of massacres over the past three years.

Gunmen opened fire with assault rifles on a group of people in Torreon on Jan. 28, killing five people and wounding four others.

The shooting happened in Nueva Rosita, a district in the western section of Torreon.

A 15-year-old boy and a 20-year-old man were pronounced dead from gunshot wounds to the head at the scene, while Red Cross paramedics assisted six men and a woman.

Investigators found 16 .223-caliber bullet casings from AR-15 assault rifles at the crime scene, the AG’s office said.

Mexico’s drug war death toll stood at 47,515 from December 2006 to Sept. 30.

The murder total has grown every year of President Felipe Calderon’s military offensive against the well-funded, heavily armed drug cartels.

Unofficial tallies published in December by independent daily La Jornada put the death toll from Mexico’s drug war at more than 50,000.