Tough talk and fear as Mexican drug violence soars

After a bloody week here in Mexico, the weekend held little reprieve for the nation's police force.

The second-highest-ranking police officer in the border city of Juarez, across the frontier from El Paso, Texas, was shot dead on Saturday, adding to the string of killings that took place last week.

Gunmen sprayed police official Juan Antonio Roman Garcia's car with bullets outside his home in Ciudad Juarez, officials said. The attack came months after his name appeared at the top of a hit list left at a monument for fallen police officers - Associated Press.   

President Felipe Calderón maintains that the wave of increased violence sweeping Mexico is in response to a federal crackdown on drug traffickers. Since taking office in December 2006, the president has dispatched thousands of troops and federal police to the north of the country to combat the country's hugely powerful drug cartels.

But the increasingly brazen nature of the attacks has made some Mexicans question the government's strategy. The slayings in Mexico City last week suggested that, rather than being hammered into submission, drug barons are bringing the battle to the nation's capital. Until recently, violence generally had been confined to other Mexican states.

Calderón is putting on a brave face. He said on Friday (read here) that the federal government is going to double its efforts to combat organized crime and that he refuses to be intimidated by the violence. He called for Mexicans' support.

But at least some Mexicans are responding by staying locked behind their doors. The Mexican newspaper El Universal, in a Sunday front page story headlined "Psychosis and Fear Trap Sinaloa," reported on how residents of the northwestern state of Sinaloa, a center of drug-trafficking, are increasingly afraid to venture out of their homes.

Many chose not to go out on Saturday to celebrate Mother's Day in Mexico after last week's assassination of Édgar Guzmán, son of the head of the Sinaloa drug cartel, Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán Loera, sparked concerns of escalating warfare between the rival Sinaloa and Gulf cartels. The story reported that singer Joan Sebastian and the supergroup Los Tigres del Norte had canceled planned concerts in the state due to security concerns.

Calderón himself appears to be leaving nothing to chance these days. El Universal reported on Saturday that during a recent trip to Reynosa the presidential security convoy included a helicopter equipped with what appeared to be a mounted machine gun. 

-- Deborah Bonello and Reed Johnson in Mexico City