The birthplace of one of Mexico's most infamous drug cartels looks more and more like its graveyard. Gunmen and associates of the Arellano Felix cartel, rulers of the city's criminal underworld for two decades, are being massacred by the score, reports Richard Marosi from Tijuana.
Their mangled bodies turn up in garbage-strewn lots, a dozen at a time. Killers cut out their tongues, slice off heads, and leave behind taunting messages. Two barrels of industrial acid left on a sidewalk last week are believed to contain liquefied human remains.
In all, at least 57 suspected organized crime members, a majority of them believed to be part of the Arellano Felix organization, were killed in the last week, including 12 dumped in front of an elementary school Sept. 29 and eight tossed in an industrial yard Thursday.
The carnage may be a sign that the cartel named for the Arellano Felix brothers is fractured and vulnerable to contenders, inside and outside the organization, who are looking to get control of lucrative trafficking routes into the United States, according to law enforcement sources.
Click here for more of the latest gruesome news on Tijuana, and go here for more on Mexico.
Go to our "Mexico Under Siege" page for more reporting on Mexico's drug wars.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Photo: State police officers investigate the scene of a shootout between drug gangs in Tijuana, Mexico, Saturday, Oct. 4. Credit: Guillermo Arias / Associated Press
Police said Saturday that they had found nine more bodies dumped in Tijuana, where 49 people were killed last week in violence related to the drug trade, reports the Associated Press. Municipal police found five of the bodies between two small shopping centers in the eastern part of the city. They had been beaten and their hands bound.
The bodies of two beheaded men were found wrapped in blankets on a road elsewhere in the city, according to the Baja California state attorney general's office. The heads were in black plastic bags nearby. A piece of cardboard left by the bodies read, "These are the bricklayer's people." On Monday, a message found with 12 bodies next to an elementary school threatened "all of those who are with 'The Engineer.'" On Friday night, two men were found shot to death in the same empty lot by the school.
State Atty. Gen. Rommel Moreno Manjarrez has blamed the violence on warring leaders in the Arellano Felix gang. More than 400 people have been killed this year in drug-related violence in Tijuana.
Execution-style killings, beheadings and shootouts have soared across Mexico since the army and federal police intensified their fight against the drug trade nearly two years ago.
Despite President Felipe Calderon's efforts to combat the country's drug lords, 40% of Mexicans feel less secure here than they did two years ago, before Calderon's assault on the drug gangs began, according to the results of a survey published in El Universal on Friday.
And more than half of all the Mexicans surveyed feel crime has gone up in their area in the last six months.
Read more about Tijuana here, and more about Mexico here.
Go to our "Mexico Under Siege" page to read the latest coverage of Mexico's ongoing drug wars.
— Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
As the death toll mounted after two riots at a prison here, Baja California state authorities came under fierce criticism Thursday for allegedly brutal tactics used by police on inmates and the treatment of inmates' relatives who had gathered outside the prison, reports Richard Marosi.
At least 21 inmates died and dozens were injured in uprisings Sunday and Wednesday at La Mesa State Penitentiary, most after state and federal police officers stormed the prison firing heavy weapons, said police officials and witnesses.
Human rights groups and families of inmates expect the death toll to climb further, saying authorities have failed to give a full accounting of casualties. Many asked why police used live rounds instead of rubber bullets or other nonlethal weapons against inmates armed with rocks.
Click here for the most recent report on the Tijuana prison riots. To read previous reports on the riots, click here.
Photo: A police officer outside La Mesa State Penitentiary in Tijuana, where rioting left at least 17 people dead. Credit: Said Betanzos / AFP/Getty Images
Police stormed a troubled state prison in the border city of Tijuana on Wednesday after violence erupted for the second time in four days.
Baja California state authorities regained control of La Mesa State Penitentiary within hours and initially said there were no fatalities. But rumors of deaths and injuries in the prison spurred continued turmoil outside the walls, where a crowd of hundreds had gathered, pelting authorities with rocks and blocking ambulances as they tried to leave. By this morning, authorities were reporting that 19 inmates had been killed, according to Mexican news reports.
The protesters, most of whom have relatives at La Mesa, had kept vigil since a riot Sunday left three inmates dead. They have accused authorities of lying about the number of deaths and injuries in the Sunday melee, and those accusations continued after Wednesday's outbreak.
Read the rest of the report here, and click here for more about Tijuana and here for more on Mexico.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
There isn't much Tijuana is known for that has ever made its residents proud. But in recent years, one of Mexico's most daring art scenes has emerged in the city. Opera is part of that.
Tijuana now has dozens of kids studying voice. It has several choirs, an orchestra, a music conservatory, and an opera company.
Plus, every July for the last five years, opera fans hold a festival on a street in a most unexpected place.
Here's the L.A. Times' video report.
-- Sam Quinones in Los Angeles
Updated: July 25, 2008
"TJ? Really?" was the response from most people last week when they learned I was heading down south of San Diego for a research trip.
They were right to be cautious. I live in Mexico City -- one of the biggest, baddest towns around -- but still gave Tijuana a second thought. The world's most famous border city has been getting some bad press of late due to the drug-related violence playing out on its streets.
But what struck me more during my brief trip was the border itself and how it is littered with evidence of its own casualties and conflicts, past and present. The wall is at the center of the current national debate on immigration, and I wanted to see it for myself.
Read on »
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced today that it will permanently shutter its field office in Tijuana, Mexico. Officials for the agency, part of the Homeland Security department, said the office is being closed as part of a larger effort to trim overseas costs and because the Tijuana office did not have “much of a workload.” The office will close on July 3, 2008. “Applicants should not be adversely affected by the office closures,” said Chris Rhatigan, an agency spokesman.
Rhatigan said the Tijuana office and another in Hong Kong are being closed as part of a broader Homeland Security evaluation of its overseas offices. Citizenship and Immigration Services has district offices in Rome, Mexico City and Bangkok that oversee 31 overseas field offices. Officials looked at activity levels in each one, examining current migration patterns, fraud trends, adoptions, where U.S. military are stationed, national security priorities, projected immigration workload and “fiscal sensibility.”
Homeland Security is coordinating with the State Department on handling case files from Hong Kong and Tijuana once those offices are closed. People with applications pending in the Tijuana office should soon get notice that the files are being transfered to either the Mexico City district office of the Ciudad Juarez field office.
--Nicole Gaouette in Washington
"Real estate agents, business owners and victims groups estimate that more than 1,000 Tijuana families -- including those of doctors, lawyers, law enforcement officials, Lucha Libre wrestlers and business owners -- have [moved from Tijuana to San Diego County] in recent years as the drug-fueled violence has worsened," writes the Times' Richard Marosi in this story.
"People have arrived in south San Diego County with only the clothes on their back. Kidnapping victims released after lengthy captivities have shown up long-haired and disheveled, sometimes with fresh wounds."
"Real estate agents tell of clients with fingers missing, sliced off by kidnappers who sent them to relatives as proof the victims were alive."
Read on....
Photo: Erik Hernandez washes the car of a Tijuana businessman in Eastlake. Hernandez, who commutes daily from a poor area of Tijuana, says he works all day for Mexicans who demand anonymity and pay well. Credit: Don Bartletti, Los Angeles Times
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Chris Kraul
Buenos Aires:
Patrick McDonnell
Caribbean:
Carol Williams
Mexico City:
Hector Tobar
Deborah Bonello
Marla Dickerson
Ken Ellingwood
Reed Johnson
San Diego:
Richard Marosi
Washington:
Nicole Gaouette