Mexico gunbattle near Texas border between suspected cartel members, police leaves at least 21 dead
https://www.foxnews.com/world/mexico-cartel-member-gunbattle-police-texas-border
Four police officers were among nearly two dozen people killed after security forces engaged in an hour-long gunbattle with suspected cartel members Saturday in a Mexican town near the U.S. border, days after President Trump said he was moving to designate Mexican drug cartels as terror organizations.
The shootout happened around noon in the small town of Villa Union, a town in Coahuila state located about an hour’s drive southwest of Eagle Pass, Texas.
Coahuila state Gov. Miguel Angel Riquelme told local media that four of the dead were police officers killed in the initial confrontation and that several municipal workers were missing. On Sunday, the Coahuila state government said that security forces killed seven additional members of the gang, bringing the death toll to at least 21.
THE IMPACT OF DESIGNATING MEXICAN CARTELS A ‘FOREIGN TERRORIST ORGANIZATION’
The armed group of suspected cartel members stormed the town of 3,000 residents in a convoy of trucks, attacking local government offices and prompting state and federal forces to intervene. Ten alleged members of the Cartel of the Northeast were initially killed in the response.
The City Hall of Villa Union is riddled with bullet holes after a gun battle between Mexican security forces and suspected cartel gunmen, Saturday, Nov. 30, 2019. (AP Photo/Gerardo Sanchez)
Riquelme told reporters the state had acted “decisively” to take back the town, as videos of the shootout posted on social media showed burned-out vehicles and the facade of Villa Union’s municipal office riddled with bullets.
The City Hall of Villa Union is riddled with bullet holes after a gun battle between Mexican security forces and suspected cartel gunmen, Saturday, Nov. 30, 2019. (AP Photo/Gerardo Sanchez)
A damaged black pickup truck with the C.D.N. of the Cartel del Noreste, or Cartel of the Northeast, written in white on its door could be seen on the street in an Associated Press photo.
A damaged pick up marked with the initials C.D.N., that in Spanish stand for Cartel of the Northeast, is on the streets after a gun battle between Mexican security forces and suspected cartel gunmen, in Villa Union, Mexico, Saturday, Nov. 30, 2019. (AP Photo/Gerardo Sanchez)
Riquelme told reporters that police had identified 14 vehicles involved in the attack and seized more than a dozen guns. Three of the suspected gunmen were killed by security forces in the initial pursuit of the gang members as they fled into rugged terrain, according to Reuters.
In the wake of the assault, the governor said that security forces will remain in the town for several days to restore a sense of calm. The town is about 12 miles from the site of a 2011 cartel massacre where officials say 70 died.
“These groups won’t be allowed to enter state territory,” the government of Coahuila said in a statement.
MEXICO’S ANNUAL HOMICIDE COUNT ON PACE TO BE HIGHEST IN DECADES AS NEARLY 100 KILLED DAILY
Mexico’s murder rate has increased to historically high levels, inching up by 2 percent in the first 10 months of the presidency of Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Federal officials said recently that there have been 29,414 homicides so far in 2019 – up from 28,869 over the same period last year.
Members of family massacred in Mexico had been previously victimized by cartel violence
Nine Americans were killed when their convoy was ambushed in broad daylight by gunmen believed to be affiliated with a drug cartel; insight from Robbie Whelan, Wall Street Journal correspondent covering Latin America.
The release of the figures comes at a time when López Obrador is facing growing criticism for his government’s “hugs, not bullets” policy of not using violence when fighting violent drug cartels.
In early November, Mexico made international headlines when a drug cartel ambush killed nine Americans, focusing world attention on rising violence in the country.
The three women and six children — all members of dual-citizen families that lived in La Mora, a decades-old settlement in the Sonora State founded as part of an offshoot of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — were on their way to see relatives in the U.S when they were targeted about 70 miles south of Douglas, Ariz., by cartel members.
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At the time, Trump called on Mexico to “wage war” on the cartels. He told author and former Fox News Channel host Bill O’Reilly in an interview posted last week his administration is “well into that process” to designate drug cartels as terror organizations. While the president did not indicate how the U.S. policy would change from past years, Trump said he told López Obrador that the U.S. stands ready to “go in and clean it out.”
At least 14 people were killed, four of them police officers, after an armed group in a convoy of trucks stormed the town, in Coahuila state, prompting security forces to intervene, state Gov. Miguel Riquelme Solis said. (AP Photo/Gerardo Sanchez)
On Friday — the day before the deadly gunbattle — Mexico’s president said he would not accept any foreign intervention in Mexico to deal with violent criminal gangs after Trump’s comments.
A damaged pick up is on a street of Villa Union, Mexico, after a gun battle between Mexican security forces and suspected cartel gunmen on Saturday. (AP Photo/Gerardo Sanchez)
Riquelme on Saturday made similar comments to Lopez Obrador on how Mexico should handle the problem.
“I don’t think that Mexico needs intervention. I think Mexico needs collaboration and cooperation,” he told reporters. “We’re convinced that the state has the power to overcome the criminals.”
U.S. Attorney General William Barr is scheduled to visit Mexico this week to discuss cooperation over security, according to Reuters.
Filed under: General Problems
Yes, too logical and too optimistic, Silly me, I still look for ALL to fight evil the same way for the same reasons we have and get the win. More realistic is most ‘healthy’ people assume the media and government are relaying the actual truth about things and here is where interest in our plight dies. Our little situations couldn’t possibly be bigger than what they have found important enough to say on the ‘news’. But they are deceived and self-deceived. The Bible references our problem, it’s an old problem but it gives hope as well. There is still someone in power that is interested in justice, he is just waiting for the completion of the full number of those who see and care and who do not so no one can ever say that we didn’t have the opportunity to do the right thing. In the mean time we keep using our voices. This is necessary to convict the enemy and free us of complicity for the blood spilled. Have no fear, justice WILL BE done, the kind we logically were and are hoping for. jw dot org
I have pretty much always said it because the DEA dosen’t have the heuvos to go after the real bad guys and —here we have it
Exactly my thoughts Leah LoneBear!!
Fly in more guns? Or, …legalize all drugs rendering the black markets impotent?
F1 Rocket Engine… Legalize is logical. Too logical.
The insane death and destruction could nearly end by Christmas.
However, it’s
too bad our country has a law enforcement industry that is among our largest employers and has a significant lobbying effort to maintain their positions and lucrative benefits and retirement packages. This industry rivals most private sector efforts and drains our treasure. Flying in the guns is winning the lottery for these folks!
Most all of it is wasteful and completely unnecessary. But it will be maintained until the very end. I foresee future efforts to fund the benefit packages of this law enforcement industry will be obtained through selling residential homeowners tax certificates to the Chinsee investment banks. Americans will lose their homes to the law enforcement industry.
You will not be able to fight it, especially when you have no arms yourself. This current civil asset forfeiture seizure stuff is just stealing candy compared to what we will see. There are hundreds of thousands of Cops, Homeland Security and Border Patrol agents all armed to the teeth and they will take whatever they have to from you or anyone else in order to feed themselves and their families. I expect nearly all US government employees and other tax-supported employees to be likewise deputized and perhaps armed. Including postal employees.
“If you’re not cop’s, you’re just little people”
Coming soon to your town is an opportunity for this legal cartel to take everything you have if you happened to be forced to acquire pain medication from the so-called Street. You will soon be considered as aiding and abetting a terrorist organization. You will be finished.
To forestall this for show from the public view for the short-term , the bloated justice department needs to feed their machine with all of the Carnage it can help generate. This industry needs to maintain the crime spree and violent death on the streets of America in order to remain in the limelight and justify their positions. These employees are largely devoid of any other skills. Nothing personnal.
That’s why legalization or even decriminalization will not likely ever happen. Decriminalization is such a no brainer – that lack implementation must certainly be a sign of an evil force at work. I mean an evil force of the type that is written about in the Bible. The evil is aided and abetted by the greed and selfishness of the benefactors.
If I’m wrong about this, I would be thrilled and would live my remaining years at peace.
Talk to me, I don’t wish to be stuck alone with this attitude, especially if I’m right or wrong.
Hasn’t worked with marijuana. The cartels are still importing mj and growing it illegally on state and federal forest land, in fact in larger quantities than ever. Beyond that, they also import pesticides and herbicides that have been banned in the U.S. for decades and leave the areas of their grow areas decimated by extremely toxic chemicals, trash, and physical destruction. Some sites have been compared to federal “superfund” sites because of the extremely toxic nature of the chemicals left behind in soil and water which will kill wildlife for many years if not physically removed at extreme cost to the taxpayers due to the remoteness of many sites. The heroin trade has also boomed since the feds and many states have reduced, or effectively eliminated penalties for possession.
Legalization may be the answer, but not with out some very strong oversight, the ecological costs, loss of life in battles with the cartels, and even enslavement of illegal immigrants by cartel-run grows are too high a price to pay. The battle over border security is loaded with too much rhetoric and with the fight focused on the plight of illegals, the ecological cost to us, for such a porous border, is getting out of control.
https://www.npr.org/2019/11/12/773122043/illegal-pot-grows-in-americas-public-forests-are-poisoning-wildlife-and-water
https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2019-08-28/cannabis-california-national-forests-environment
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/foreign-cartels-embrace-home-grown-marijuana-pot-legal-states-n875666
https://www.newsweek.com/2018/01/19/mexican-drug-cartels-taking-over-california-legal-marijuana-775665.html