14 Mexican Gang Members Gunned Down

[IronGhost]

14 Mexican's Gunned Down in Drug Wars

By Lizbeth Diaz 1 hour, 4 minutes ago

TIJUANA, Mexico (Reuters) - Fourteen Mexican drug gang members were killed and eight others were injured in a gun battle near the U.S. border on Saturday that was one of the bloodiest shootouts in Mexico's three-year-long narco-war.

Rival factions of the local Arellano Felix drug cartel in Tijuana on the Mexico-California border fought each other with rifles and machine guns in the early hours of the morning, police said.

The bodies lay in pools of blood, strewn along a road on the city's eastern limits, surrounded by hundreds of bullet casings. Many of the victims' faces were destroyed.

"By the way this happened and the guns used, we believe the men are from the same cartel, the Arellano Felix gang," said a senior police officer in Tijuana who declined to be named.

Two of the dead are believed to be senior hitmen for the Arellano Felix cartel and were identified by the large gold rings on their fingers. The rings carried the icon of Saint Death, a ghoulish grim reaper figure that gangsters believe protects them, police said.

Officials also found police helmets and body armor that the two hitmen used for protection.

Six men were arrested but the remaining survivors escaped, the office said.

A source close to the Tijuana mayor's office said local authorities had requested more troops for the city bordering San Diego, California, and that they could arrive this weekend.

President Felipe Calderon has sent thousands of troops to Tijuana and Baja California state on Mexico's Pacific coast since taking office in December 2006. Some 25,000 soldiers and federal police are deployed to fight cartels in drug hot spots across Mexico.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080426/ts_nm/mexico_drugs_dc

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I wonder if one could by one of those gold "St. Death" rings on eBay?

[4dplane]

Every time I read this sort of thing I can't help it think this is all planned out! People need jobs, so keep up a good drug war and let the profits rocket. If you make all drugs legal, who makes any money from those drugs?

Edited April 26, 2008 by 4dplane

[Guardsman Bass]

It's not just Calderon's troops who are trying to go after the cartels. The cartels seemed to be doing their damnedest to rip each other apart; witness the even greater violence occurring in Ciudad Juarez (the city opposite El Paso, Texas), where two gangs have essentially been tearing each other to pieces with rival imported gunmen over the past month.

[chemical-licker]

so what

[Guardsman Bass]

so what

It's yet another example of why we needed regulated but legal sales of currently banned drugs as opposed to outright bans. Legalize cocaine and these cartels would evaporate overnight - the only reason they go on these kinds of violent sprees is because the profitability of smuggling cocaine and other drugs into the US is so high that they are all fighting over who has the rights to extort the supply chain.

[IronGhost]

It's yet another example of why we needed regulated but legal sales of currently banned drugs as opposed to outright bans. Legalize cocaine and these cartels would evaporate overnight - the only reason they go on these kinds of violent sprees is because the profitability of smuggling cocaine and other drugs into the US is so high that they are all fighting over who has the rights to extort the supply chain.

So true -- this is at least an experiment badly in need of a test run. It would be so interesting to see what would happen to all this insane violence if cocaine could be obtained legaly through controlled channels --it's never going to happen, of course. There's just no political will or courage for an action so bold.

But just imagine pulling the rug from under these cartels.

I heard on public readio the other day that there are sometimes 10 deaths a day from gun fire in El Paso, Texas, all related to drug wars -- imagine 10 deaths a day. That's wild.

[Ignus Fatuus]

better them than the border patrol agents. By the way why would they want to mutilate their faces?

[Cradle of Fish]

So true -- this is at least an experiment badly in need of a test run. It would be so interesting to see what would happen to all this insane violence if cocaine could be obtained legaly through controlled channels --it's never going to happen, of course. There's just no political will or courage for an action so bold.

But just imagine pulling the rug from under these cartels.

I heard on public readio the other day that there are sometimes 10 deaths a day from gun fire in El Paso, Texas, all related to drug wars -- imagine 10 deaths a day. That's wild.

And Pablo Escobar was responsible for like 20 deaths a day and was on Forbes list of richest men in the world, all because of this pointless drug war. It really is ridiculous, and it may never end. All you have to do is point at Prohibition to show that crime is created by the banning of something and you would win the argument, but for some reason people think alcohol and illegal drugs are two completely different things. Alcohol and Tobacco kill just as many, if not more, people than Heroin and Methamphetamines.

Maybe we should try something different for once, when our current course of action has been shown repeatedly to be failing.

[Bill Hill]

better them than the border patrol agents. By the way why would they want to mutilate their faces?

when the weather is hot, and the season's dry...

el diablo he comes... the jungle comes alive...