Mexico : beheaded cop !

[Feck]

How unsafe is that country !

A Mexican police commander investigating the reported shooting of an American jet skier has been decapitated, according to a Texan sheriff.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World- ... id_Hartley

[maiforpeace]

How unsafe is that country !

A Mexican police commander investigating the reported shooting of an American jet skier has been decapitated, according to a Texan sheriff.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World- ... id_Hartley

Nobody wants to be a policemen in Mexico anymore...

Young mother becomes Mexican town's police chief

By Jesus Alcazar (AFP) – 3 days ago

PRAXEDIS GUADALUPE GUERRERO, Mexico — Marisol Valles is just 20 years old, mother of a baby son and still a student, but she is also the newest chief of police in a drug-plagued region of northern Mexico.

"She was the only person to accept the position," said the mayor's office in Praxedis Guadalupe Guerrero, amid the daily threat of violence here which has claimed the lives of police officers and a former mayor.

But Valles, who is studying criminology in nearby Ciudad Juarez -- Mexico's most violent city -- said she was determined not to be intimidated.

"We're all afraid in Mexico now. We can't let fear beat us," Valles told AFP, wearing glasses and holding an exercise book after her swearing in on Wednesday.

The unassuming criminology student took up the post of police chief in a municipality of some 10,000 near the US border because no one else wanted it.

Chihuahua state has borne the brunt of Mexico's spiraling drug-related violence that has left more than 28,000 dead in the last four years.

Last week there were at least eight murders in Praxedis. The former mayor was killed in June. And police officers have also been targeted.

Valles officially took on her new post in front of the 19 police officers, including nine recently recruited women, who will be her team.

"I took the risk because I want my son to live in a different community to the one we have today. I want people to be able to go out without fear, as it was before," Valles said.

More than 2,500 people have been killed this year in the Juarez valley region, where the town lies, and the area is deemed a high-traffic transit point for illegal drugs, as well as migrants, into the US state of Texas.

With scant resources, Valles said her job will not be to fight drug trafficking because that responsibility falls on soldiers and federal police.

Instead, she will focus on rehabilitating public spaces and improving relationships between neighbors in order to improve general security.

"Praxedis was different in the time of its oldest residents -- people walked the streets at night, they knew each other, they talked and met up," she said.

On her first day at work, Valles was out on the beat visiting schools and residents.

"I've been well received and I know people will help me to work on solutions for security problems," she said.

Thousands of towns and villages across Mexico are policed by small, underpaid and under-armed forces, who are notoriously corrupt and often work with drug traffickers.

President Felipe Calderon launched a military crackdown on the country's powerful drug gangs, involving some 50,000 troops, when he took office in 2007.

He has also sought to clean up the police with a series of purges and stricter training, and is seeking to bring some 2,500 municipalities under the control of state governments, which are considered to be less corrupt.

Valles said she took a month to decide whether to accept her new post, after consulting with her family.

"Young people need to engage with their communities," she said.

[Warren Dew]

Falcon lake is apparently a big drug smuggling transshipment point in Zeta territory. There's currently a big war on between the Zetas and the Gulf Cartel. The best theory I've heard is that the Hartleys were mistaken by the Zetas for Gulf Cartel spies.

It's an interesting question why the Zetas are so desperate to stop the investigation, though.

[charlou]

Scary place ... Marisol Valles is a courageous young woman.

[lsdetroit]

reminds me of some of the stuff i saw in TIjuana. wild stuff south of the border.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I blame Henry J. Anslinger.

[maiforpeace]

I blame Henry J. Anslinger.

And, why not Darwin this time?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I blame Henry J. Anslinger.

And, why not Darwin this time?

HJA was in charge of Prohibition. When he saw it was going down he needed another "evil" to fight. He chose marijuana. The rest, as they say, is history.

[Warren Dew]

HJA was in charge of Prohibition. When he saw it was going down he needed another "evil" to fight. He chose marijuana. The rest, as they say, is history.

If it gets legalized in California, I wonder how much of the crop will be absorbed by California demand, assuming it can get across the border.

Of course, there will still be cocaine and other drugs to support the Mexican cartels, I suppose.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

HJA was in charge of Prohibition. When he saw it was going down he needed another "evil" to fight. He chose marijuana. The rest, as they say, is history.

If it gets legalized in California, I wonder how much of the crop will be absorbed by California demand, assuming it can get across the border.

I'd love to see the drug sniffing dogs lined up along the California state line.

Of course, there will still be cocaine and other drugs to support the Mexican cartels, I suppose.

We could always hope for a Slippery Slope scenario.

[Ayaan]

Just think of the money that could be freed for other things if we stopped this "War on Drugs." Then think of the money that could be raised if drugs were legalized and regulated/taxed like alcohol and tobacco.

[maiforpeace]

If pot is legalized in California, there will be a lot of people moving here that's for sure. It could do a lot for our economy.

[maiforpeace]

As Mexico drug violence runs rampant, U.S. guns tied to crime south of border

By James V. Grimaldi and Sari Horwitz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, December 13, 2010; 12:41 AM

No other state has produced more guns seized by police in the brutal Mexican drug wars than Texas. In the Lone Star State, no other city has more guns linked to Mexican crime scenes than Houston. And in the Texas oil town, no single independent dealer stands out more for selling guns traced from south of the border than Bill Carter.

Carter, 76, has operated four Carter's Country stores in the Houston metropolitan area over the past half-century. In the past two years, more than 115 guns from his stores have been seized by the police and military in Mexico.

As an unprecedented number of American guns flows to the murderous drug cartels across the border, the identities of U.S. dealers that sell guns seized at Mexican crime scenes remain confidential under a law passed by Congress in 2003.

A year-long investigation by The Washington Post has cracked that secrecy and uncovered the names of the top 12 U.S. dealers of guns traced to Mexico in the past two years.

Eight of the top 12 dealers are in Texas, three are in Arizona, and one is in California. In Texas, two of the four Houston area Carter's Country stores are on the list, along with four gun retailers in the Rio Grande Valley at the southern tip of the state. There are 3,800 gun retailers in Texas, 300 in Houston alone.

"One of the reasons that Houston is the number one source, you can go to a different gun store for a month and never hit the same gun store," said J. Dewey Webb, special agent in charge of the Houston field division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. "You can buy [a 9mm handgun] down along the border, but if you come to Houston, you can probably buy it cheaper because there's more dealers, there's more competition."

Drug cartels have aggressively turned to the United States because Mexico severely restricts gun ownership. Following gunrunning paths that have been in place for 50 years, firearms cross the border and end up in the hands of criminals as well as ordinary citizens seeking protection.

"This is not a new phenomenon," Webb said.

What is different now, authorities say, is the number of high-powered rifles heading south - AR-15s, AK-47s, armor-piercing .50-caliber weapons - and the savagery of the violence.

Federal authorities say more than 60,000 U.S. guns of all types have been recovered in Mexico in the past four years, helping fuel the violence that has contributed to 30,000 deaths. Mexican President Felipe Calderon came to Washington in May and urged Congress and President Obama to stop the flow of guns south.

U.S. law enforcement has ramped up its focus on gun trafficking along the southwestern border. Arrests of individual gunrunners have surged. But investigators rarely bring regulatory actions or criminal cases against U.S. gun dealers, in part because of laws backed by the gun lobby that make it difficult to prove cases.

All of the stores among the top 12 have had double-digit traces of "crime guns" to their stores from Mexico, a statistic that can be a red flag for investigators. A high number of traces does not necessarily signal wrongdoing. It could be the result of sales volume, geography or clientele. Carter's Country, for instance, is the largest independent gun retailer in the region. Most experts and ATF officials agree that the majority of dealers are law-abiding.

continued

[sandinista]

Just think of the money that could be freed for other things if we stopped this "War on Drugs." Then think of the money that could be raised if drugs were legalized and regulated/taxed like alcohol and tobacco.

I heard some jack off american comment on legalization a couple days ago on the "news". He let the cat out of the bag by stating "we can't legalize weed because that would mean admitting we (the US) have lost the war on drugs" Fucking dick, it's about saving fucking face now?

[maiforpeace]

Just think of the money that could be freed for other things if we stopped this "War on Drugs." Then think of the money that could be raised if drugs were legalized and regulated/taxed like alcohol and tobacco.

I heard some jack off american comment on legalization a couple days ago on the "news". He let the cat out of the bag by stating "we can't legalize weed because that would mean admitting we (the US) have lost the war on drugs" Fucking dick, it's about saving fucking face now?

Without the war on drugs, we wouldn't have the market for our guns. So the best thing to do would be not to win the war, eh?