Attacks against Monterrey cops continue: 3 die

By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com

A staged car wreck in Juarez municipality in Nuevo Leon may have led to the death of three traffic cops, according to Mexican news accounts.

Saturday evening one motorcycle police agent was reportedly shot to death at a location on the road which leads to Reynosa in Juarez municipality, specifically in Garza y Garza colony with another two unidentified taxi drivers wounded.

Now it is being reported in a Monday edition of Milenio news daily that a second and third traffic police agent died at the scene.

According to the report, the three police agents killed in Garza y Garza colony were investigating a traffic accident between the drivers of two taxi cabs, when armed suspects travelling aboard a Volkswagen Golf sedan drove up and started firing.  As soon as the shooters fled the scene, the parties to the traffic accident also fled aboard a second vehicle.

The dead cops were identified as Omar Alejandro Mares Puente, Pablo Enrique Peña Blanco and José Alejandro Garcia Roch.  They are three of a traffic police squad totalling 35 in Juarez municipality.

Meanwhile in Guadalupe municipality, three other traffic police agents have been kidnapped Monday.

According to a separate report which appeared Monday in the online version of Milenio, one traffic police agent was kidnapped while investigating a traffic accident at around 1100 hrs near the intersection of calles Ruiz Cortines and Naranjo Adolfo Prieto colony. He was identified as Emilio Gámez Martínez, de 53 años.

According to the report two more traffic police agents were kidnapped near the intersection of avenidas Eloy Cavazos and Roble.  Guadalupe authorities are denying the second kidnapping.

According to several news reports Gamez Martinez was released in Doctor Gonzalez municipality unharmed later Monday afternoon.

Guadalupe municipality was the location late last Saturday night where four individuals were shot to death  in a bar called Jhonny’s Place.  Two of the victims, according to a Monday afternoon report in Milenio, were identified as Ruben Salazar Rivera, 35, and Juan Carlos Vazquez Valles, 26.

Six of the wounded were identified as Raul Lopez Velasco, 24, Raul Lopez Sanchez, 43, Enrique Lopez Sanchez, 47, Ricardo Villegas Hernandez, 23, and Martin Espinoza Vazquez, 29.

According to the report, seven armed suspects after dismounting from a taxi, entered the bar and started shouting identifying themselves as members of a drug cartel before they started firing their weapons.

Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com and BorderlandBeat.com