"La Línea" Ambushes 19 State Police: 4 Dead

Translated by Yaqui for Borderland Beat from: El Diario

                                                              Midnight in Mexico

Extra Material from El Herald and El Sol de Mx

Chihuahua.- Four state policemen lost their lives in an ambush on the San Pedro-San Juanito highway in the Chihuahua mountains, when they were returning from the city of Cuauhtémoc to the town where they have their detachment, after transferring detainees from the group criminal "La Linea" to authorities of the Public Ministry.

The place known as El Nogal, near San Juanito, the largest town in the municipality of Bocoyna in the Sierra Tarahumara, about 50 men from the road and the surrounding area closed the way to a convoy of three patrols of the State Police, some shooting began from atop the mountains.

In the attack, recorded at 10 o'clock last Thursday, they used high-powered weapons and grenades, with which they killed two of the four dead agents and their patrols, while another of the units was broken in the attempt to rescue the elements trapped; After the surprise attack some of the agents were able to repel the aggression, without achieving the arrest of attackers, but they secured one of the units in which they were traveling, a white GMC 2013, in addition to some weapons left by the aggressors during their escape. The armed convoy of gunmen was traveling in at least 40 vehicles.

Two police officers of the State Security Commission (CES) were burned and two others were shot dead during the ambush last Thursday night against 19 elements of that corporation, according to the official report. The assault took place about 50 kilometers from Bocoyna, Chihuahua , where thirteen officers were wounded -one of them seriously- with large-caliber shots and reportedly involved as many as 50 gunman with large caliper weapons.

The attack was at the height of kilometer 46 of this route, where are the limits of the municipalities of Bocoyna and Guerrero, in a closed curve and surrounded by hills, in one of which was placed a machine gun floor, according to the evidence collected in the place.

Of the 19 elements that were ambushed, the 4 murdered were identified: Santiago Domingo Herrera, Edgar Chavira Juárez, Víctor Ortega Morales and Rafael Alemán Hinojos; 7 resulted in serious and minor injuries, but were treated in hospitals in Chihuahua and Cuauhtémoc, from where they reported stable until yesterday afternoon; while the rest of the members of the official convoy were without injuries, some thanks to which they took refuge among the rocks and the nearby mountains, after trying to defend themselves.

According to a recording of the C-4 of Cuauhtémoc City sent to El Diario, the group of agents could not ask for support by radio because there is no signal in the mountainous area of ​​the mountain municipality where the officers were.

In the villages surrounding the site of the events, on the Gran Visión road that leads to the tourist sites of the mountains of Chihuahua, they pointed out that during the night there were hours of uncertainty, because shortly before the attack some residents noticed that a large amount of of trucks with armed men, who later learned they had set up the ambush, with fixed machine guns and vehicles aimed at surprising the elements.

      Most of illegal logging in this remote area is controlled by Narcos/Organized Crime Group

The closest support to the point of attack is located in Cuauhtémoc, approximately one hour away.

The commissioner Óscar Alberto Aparicio Avendaño confirmed the deaths and said that four soldiers lost their lives and six more were injured. Aparicio Avendaño condemned the attack and warned that it will act accordingly, advancing the implementation of a joint operation to find those responsible.

"It was an ambush, a cowardly attack, that's what it was," said Aparicio Avendaño, who pointed out that the crime will not go unpunished as previous attacks against state agents have not been allowed to happen, facts that have been achieved.  35 people have been detained in the last two years. "Today will be the same, we will find them and we will stop them, the operatition will not go down the mountain until we find them".

The official credited the attack to the group "La Linea" and assured that the ETUC has attacked equally the two groups that operate in the entity, both the Sinaloa and Juárez cartels, of which 27 leaders have been arrested, 13 of a side and 14 on the other.

A criminal group identified with the criminal organization "La Linea" was the orchestrator of the attack, said one of the officers assigned to Creel.

This in retaliation for having detained that same day three armed members of "La Linea" criminal group, revealed the official of the CES.

The deceased agents were officially identified as Santiago Domingo Herrera, Edgar Chavira Juárez, Víctor Ortega Morales and Martín Alemán Hinojos. These last two were scorched once they had been riddled by bullets.

Aparicio reported that the incident occurred around 11 pm Thursday in the town known as "El Nogal", municipality of Bocoyna, when the officers returned from the city of Cuauhtémoc where they made the provision of three people detained with advance in the town of San Juanito.

The version of one of the officers of the ETUC indicates that several of his companions when being ambushed fled and they went into the mountain area hiding in the bushes in the middle of the darkness.

Among them are the wounded who were later aided by their comrades and who were initially believed to be missing, said the witness, who assured that the support took more than an hour because the nearest detachment is in Cuauhtémoc.

According to the interviewee, the point of the ambush was passing the San Pedro junction, in El Nogal, where a group of about 40 criminal trucks were already waiting for them from the top of a mountain.

During the morning of Thursday three criminals with firearms had been arrested. The leader of the criminal group, identified as César Manjarrez, alias "El H2", had unofficially requested the release of his companions and when he was denied he acted in retaliation preparing the ambush, the official said.

According to the source, who asked not to be identified, the ESC elements came from Cuauhtémoc, where they placed the three detainees at the disposal of the Public Ministry.

With large caliber weapons they were shot at in the dark of the area, where there is no communication by any means and it is known that it is a dangerous step because of the presence of the criminal group in question, the witness said.

The state prosecutor, César Peniche, reported yesterday morning that an operation had been deployed since Thursday night in search of those responsible. He said they had secured weapons, vehicles and drugs, but no people were detained.

He said that full support will be provided to the relatives of the policemen killed, in addition to the support for the personnel who were injured, who receive attention in health centers and hospitals in Cuauhtémoc.

One of the injured officers has a serious condition, while five others were reported stable and out of danger, he said.

The Absentee Mexican Military:

Cuauhtemoc:  The Mexican Army was the great absentee in the aggression against state agents in Bocoyna, said the West Zone prosecutor, Jesús Manuel Carrasco Chacón.

"I have to say, as a prosecutor in the area, we are worried that the Army will not be mobilized in this type of situation. Although it does not correspond to them, as uniformed with that oath and patriotic duty we must leave to attend the call of this type of events, "he said.

He said that the attack originated from the displacement work that the State Security Commission has achieved with the control that this criminal cell had in this region.

"The attack did not come so much because of the detention, but because of the illegal timber that has been subtracted from them, due to confrontations that have occurred with these criminal groups that in some way have marked the presence of the institution in the region and this makes the criminal groups, " he said.

For this weekend sports activities are scheduled in Bocoyna, before which the prosecutor recommended not to travel at night in this region. However, he pointed out that there is a police presence in the area that must guarantee security in the area.

A Command Failure:

A fault of command and the lack of immediate intervention of support by personnel of the Mexican Army, highlighted near the area of ​​the attack, was taken advantage of last night by the contingent of gunmen from "La Linea", who attacked to the convoy of agents of the State Security Commission (CES), in the access road that leads from the town of San Pedro to San Juanito in the municipality of Bocoyna.

Agents of the ETUC interviewed by El Diario and those who requested anonymity, said that the ambush could have been avoided or presented the confrontation in different circumstances, not of disadvantage, if the convoy had not returned that night to the town of Creel.

"It was a failure of command, because the comrades returned to Creel at night, when there is already a history of ambushes and attacks on the corporation in that place," they revealed.

It was indicated that at the time of being surprised in number and armament by the delinquents, in what qualified by the survivors themselves as "a hail of bullets", some policemen chose to leave the attack point and fled towards the mountain, this was how they managed to save their lives, but not their four companions.

The criminals detonated fragmentation grenades that destroyed a patrol and according to estimates, at least 50 gunmen had been involved in the attack at various points of access to the highway, where previously there had been other attacks on members of the security forces.

The FGE, through its spokesman Carlos Huerta, informed that the events occurred hours after the agents of the CES carried out the arrest of three armed men traveling in a car, this at the intersection of Tamaulipas and Octava streets, town of San Juanito.

There were surprised individuals in possession of firearms (no number or type was specified) and were identified as Demetrio Arturo Banda Rascón, 31, Carlos Humberto Antillón Pérez, 32 and Jesus Ignacio Pérez Parra, 44 years old.

Unofficially it transpired that the arrest occurred around 2:30 p.m. and only a 10-millimeter gun was located.

That is how the state agents moved later to the municipality of Cuauhtémoc, where they made available to the Federal Public Ministry (MPF) the men, vehicle and insured weapon.

This situation, to say of the authorities, provoked the reaction of the criminal group, whose members waited for the return of the convoy to collect revenge around the 21:30 hours.

Some versions indicated that the shooting occurred because the criminal leader known as "El H-2" had been captured and the gunmen rescued him from the police, but that version was denied by the Prosecutor's Office.

Chronology:

1-Around 14:30 hours, in the streets of Tamaulipas and Octava of the town of San Juanito, the convoy of elements of the CES mark the stop to the crew of a vehicle and there they arrest Demetrio Arturo Banda Rascón, 31 , Carlos Humberto Antillón Pérez, 32, and Jesús Ignacio Pérez Parra, 44 years old, in possession of a firearm.

2-State agents transfer the detainees and the insured to the municipality of Cuauhtémoc, where they are placed at the disposal of the Federal Public Ministry (MPF).

3-Around 9:30 p.m., the ambush occurs at the access road that leads from the town of San Pedro to San Juanito in the municipality of Bocoyna, when the 19 police officers return aboard three official trucks to their destination, detachment in Creel, with the balance of 4 dead, 13 injured and two unharmed.

The Search is On:

State authorities surrounded the communities of San Juanito and Creel after the violent events in which four policemen died.

Since Thursday the head of the State Security Commission (CES), Oscar Aparicio Avendaño, ordered the transfer of more than one hundred units to the mountain area in support of the actions to try to locate the presumed responsible for the ambush.

Yesterday, several CES and ministerial units carried out searches in homes, hotels and motels. In the development of the mega - operativo the units traveled the road from San Pedro to San Juanito and from San Juanito to the municipality of Creel.

After several revisions the agents made incursions in the mountains and other towns in search of cells of armed people, where they managed the arrest of at least one man.

Later the dozens of units were introduced to the gaps of the community of San Juanito apparently looking for alleged camps in which could be the members of the cells of the crime, and possible intellectual authors of the ambush to the agents of the CES.

Hours later, these operatives were joined by about 10 units of agents of the General Prosecutor's Office of the State of Chihuahua, Cuauhtémoc, La Junta and the detainees in the municipality of Creel, but no arrests were reported until last night.

Other Attacks of Police at the Same Location:

Approximately ten gunmen attacked a command of the State Police (PEU) at or near the same  junction of the communities of San Pedro and San Juanito, the same point where four agents were killed last Thursday night.

Those events occurred on February 13, 2014, when a group of armed men allegedly linked to "La Línea" opened fire on a convoy of state policemen, leaving two officers dead and another seven injured by bullet wounds.

The authorities presumed then that the motive of the attack was a revenge for the death of three federal pseudo-policemen linked to drug trafficking activities, killed by public security agents in a confrontation that occurred the day before the attack against members of the PEU. The policemen who died in the ambush were Alejandro Núñez Guadaña, 24, and Gregorio Cabrera Jiménez, 39.

State authorities detained three men for their alleged responsibility in the attack. Since October 4, 2016, when the administration of Governor Javier Corral Jurado began, there have been 64 murders of police officers in Chihuahua.

                                                  Gov Javier Corral remains silent

Chihuahua Governor Javier Corral refused to comment on the attack against state agents in Bocoyna. The official passed by the reporters who asked him questions and despite following him to his office in the Government Palace he did not agree to be interviewed.