Reporting from Mexico City - Authorities in the border city of Ciudad Juarez said on Tuesday night that they had arrested a man suspected of taking part in a shooting attack on a high-school party that killed at least 15 people early Sunday.
Officials summoned reporters to see the suspect, who said in their presence that the main Juarez-based drug cartel targeted the party because it had received reports that members of a rival trafficking group were in attendance.
The suspect, identified as Jose Dolores Arroyo Chavarria, said he acted as a lookout for the 24 or so gunmen he said took part. He said they were ordered to kill everyone inside.
Authorities said they arrested the suspect Monday afternoon after army troops interrupted the planned assassination of a drug rival. Killed during that gunfight was one of the men who allegedly supervised the assault on the party, in which dozens of young people packed a private home.
Officials said some of the same gunmen are believed to be responsible for the killings of four people Monday at a dance hall.
Authorities in the state of Chihuahua on Tuesday gave the number of dead as 15, though a day earlier they had said 16 died, a figure corroborated by local news reports.
Parents of the slain teens have denied that their children were involved in criminal activity.
Source:latimes.com/
Showing posts with label Mexico party shooting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mexico party shooting. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Mexico party shooting leader killed in army clash: official
The man, called Ramon and nicknamed "El Doce," or "The Twelve," died late Monday in a shootout in Ciudad Juarez, according to a statement from one of his accomplices, Chihuahua State Attorney General Patricia Gonzalez said on Televisa television.
"He was the leader, the one who led the operation to exterminate the youths," Gonzalez added.
Some 15 gunmen opened fire on a party packed with teenagers in the early hours of Sunday, in a particularly extreme attack in the northern border city which is notorious for deadly score-settling between drug gangs.
Gonazalez said the suspected killers were hitmen from the Los Aztecas group working for the Juarez drug gang, which is fighting a bloody turf war against the Sinaloa gang.
The suspects had believed the young partygoers belonged to the Sinaloa gang, she said, without ruling out the possibility that adult members of that gang had been present or nearby.
The only suspect detained in connection with the killings said that his accomplices had thought the youths belonged to Los Artistas Asesinos group, which works for the Sinaloa gang.
He also said that his gang had killed five people on Monday in a Ciudad Juarez bar.
Gruesome gangland-style killings have spiraled in recent years in the city across from El Paso, Texas, which saw some 2,660 murders in 2009 alone, despite the deployment of some 6,000 soldiers in a nationwide crackdown on organized crime.
Suspected drug attacks have left more than 15,000 dead across Mexico in the past three years, as the government has deployed some 50,000 troops countrywide to tackle the growing violence
Source:AFP
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