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Monday, May 23, 2011

Gunmen Kill 2 Teenage Girls in Ciudad Juarez


Gunmen killed two girls, ages 15 and 16, in Ciudad Juarez, a border city in northern Mexico, police said.

The gunmen entered a house Saturday in the southern section of Ciudad Juarez, located across the border from El Paso, Texas, and killed the teenagers, municipal police spokesmen told Efe.

One body was found on the second floor and the other on the first floor.

The victims have not been identified and police have not determined the motive for the killings.

Ciudad Juarez, Mexico’s murder capital, first gained notoriety in the early 1990s when young women began to disappear in the area.

In most of the slayings, the victims were young women from poor families who came to the border city from all over Mexico to work in the many assembly plants, known as “maquiladoras,” built there to take advantage of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Investigators have not determined who is behind the killings, although there has been speculation that serial killers, organized crime groups, people traffickers, drug smugglers and child pornographers, among others, may be involved.

More than 500 women have been killed in Juarez since 1993, with the majority of the cases going unsolved.

The latest killings occurred hours after President Felipe Calderon visited the area and met with federal, Chihuahua state and municipal officials.

Federal officials announced at the start of the weekend that the murder rate in Juarez had fallen sharply over the past six months from an average of 11 people a day in October 2010 to four per day in April.

The decline in the murder rate is due to cooperation among the federal, state and local governments, and the deployment of 5,000 Federal Police officers to Juarez since last April, federal security spokesman Alejandro Poire said.

Not only has the homicide rate dropped in Juarez, where there have been 8,500 drug-related deaths in the past four-and-a-half years, but officials also have made progress in combating other crimes as well during that six-month period, Poire said.

All of the criminal organizations active in Ciudad Juarez – a city of 1.2 million people – are being “weakened,” Poire said.

The violence in Ciudad Juarez is blamed on a brutal war for control of the border city being waged by the Juarez and Sinaloa cartels with backing from hit men from local street gangs.

Army soldiers also have played a role in restoring security, seizing 2,000 weapons, 150,000 rounds of ammunition, 70 tons of marijuana, more than 400,000 psychotropic pills and 112 vehicles between March 2008 and May 2011, Poire said.

The army captured 1,400 suspects during that period, the federal security spokesman said, adding that since 2007 a total of 3.3 billion pesos ($284 million) has been invested in security, education, culture, health and social development.

Ciudad Juarez will be the destination next month of an anti-violence march headed by poet and activist Javier Sicilia, who has launched a movement aimed at sharply reducing the violence resulting from turf wars among rival drug cartels in numerous states and a government offensive against the gangs.

Sicilia, whose son was killed earlier this year by suspected cartel gunmen, is calling for Calderon’s “militarist strategy” to be replaced by a citizen safety initiative.

Calderon’s critics contend that his strategy has only triggered an increasingly violent response from drug traffickers, who are known for brutal tactics such as hanging their decapitated rivals from bridges in urban areas.

Federal forces also have been accused of rights violations, but the government says it is essential that they play the lead role in combating the cartels due to widespread corruption among law enforcement at the local and state level.

Conflicts among rival drug cartels and between criminals and the security forces have claimed 40,000 lives in Mexico since December 2006, when Calderon militarized the struggle against the drug trade shortly after taking office.

Source: EFE

12 comments:

  1. "More than 500 women have been killed in Juarez since 1993".

    And 3,000 men have been killed in the same city in the last year alone, many skinned alive or or beheaded.

    1 woman = 100 men

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  2. 9:06@

    ...Sure there have been more men, but those men were likely drug related MURDERS, and the women's deaths were probably from (predators), whose notion that women are less than, so think about that when you compare men to women ratios..

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  3. more than 500 women murders.. lol. what a joke. there has been thousands upon thousands of female murders in the city since the early to mid 90's.

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  4. I don't think the point is to say which gender has been killed more, or which is more important to consider. However, the motivations for killing women and killing men are often different, especially in cultures like Mexico that have strong notions of gender roles. So, these murders tell us that maybe there needs to be investigations into whether they are, in fact, somehow different from the killing of many men and if so, what motivates these acts of violence. Without questioning whether the killing of men and women are caused by the same things we will just assume that it's all the same phenomenon without having evidence to support this idea.

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  5. @ 9;21 You are correct. For every female found murdered, several go unreported. For every one found, there are 10 missing. In 93, there was one very sick serial killer which by 95 turned into several with copycat artists. Gangs started using killing women as an initiation. A phenomenon known as "Juarez Noches" came about where junior or untouchables (sons of elite politicians and cartel members) would set out to party and pick a rose or two to rape and murder. The municipal police started abducting and raping females and would kill them do do away with the witness. The La Linea would have 3 day parties after a successful transfer of a large load and "Juarez Noches" was part of the celebration. Stalkers on the street had free run because there was no investigation. Some suspect snuff flicks too. One theory on some of the murders was DNA taken from sanitary napkins gave leads for organ donations and so they would kill the workers for the organs. There were lots of leads and lots of suspects. Mexico has a 10 year statute on all crimes therefore many cannot even be prosecuted.

    Search "serial killings Juarez", it will amaze you. Read "The Killing Fields, A Mexican Safari" by Diana Washington Valdez.

    This is one good reason why the Juarez Cartel fell out of favor with the people and the government.

    They finally almost quit keeping track after the cartel war started in 2006. I have been to several of the sights where groups of bodies were found.

    TRC

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  6. I read that book, and thought it was a great source of knowledge, and gave me the information I wanted about the murders, however, what I thought the book lacked was a clearer picture of what happened, or what most likely happened, something similar to what you said in your post, but more detailed, and with an accurate timeline. In Valdez's book you are left to piece thru oudated documents to reach a conclusion, I believe there is some wrap up in the book, but it's not very comprehensive. Some of the stuff I have a problem with, to me, it seems unlikely, that different factions/groups all started to kill women for fun/sport, around the same time. It had to start somewhere, and with powerful people, likely Juarez cartel, but was that likely with Amado as the leader? Wasn't he thought to genuinely care for Juarez/Mexico? According to Bowdens book, TRC< which you reference favorably, he was.

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  7. @ J...Valdez took off fast in the book and if I hadn't have read articles for years on the subject, I would have been lost. Because of the signatures in the early killings(biting off nipples), it did begin with a sick serial killer (first in 93}, but that is suspicious, it could have been before. And I think copycat killers jumped on the wagon (about 1995), and also just perverted bastards because they knew there would be no investigation. I suspect some gangs started doing it as an initiation (1998), and then the police started killing them and that of course was La Linea (1998). From my guess, the Juniors got into too and since the Juniors and La Linea were involved, the Juarez Cartel imposed that all investigation be blocked or tainted. Also, remember that any sociopath will take any opportunity to impose his power on another and killing is ultimate.

    About Amado...He had been doing cocaine for 20 straight years before his death. The amounts of cocaine he did daily is reportedly unbelievable. I suspect that for his last 2 years, he was a paranoid wreck. He had fallen out of the graces of the government officials that had supported him because of the killing rampage that he ordered throughout especially his last summer of living. He was so out of touch with the Juarez people, I doubt he cared what happened. His brain had to have been fried. But I have always thought Amado was a ruthless bastard too. After killing 8 people at a landing strip in Ojinaga in about 1982, and told Pablo Acosta, the plaza boss, "better 8 innocent men die than one guilty man live." Do you remember the beautiful blonde that sold drugs in El Paso and dated one of the cartel bosses tand Amado ordered him to kill her because "she talked too much." Not because she snitched. Amado did this because he could. I saw a photo of her and she was "that young innocent, and beautiful."

    I think now, you and I could piece together details and put a fairly adequate time frame on the the different factions of killers if we had names, gone missing dates and locations, cause of death, and location of bodies. A lot of that is available. The problem would be that we would end up dead if we tried to interview families are witnesses. And I think ultimately, that is why Valdez' book is vague in areas too. The book would be a big seller if we did it.

    I would like to talk with you in person someday.

    TRC

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  8. Thats more what I was looking for in the book, although I needed that book to give me the basic knowledge, I was looking for a comprehensive theory and timeline thru the murders, and like you mentioned, tying specific murders and victims to specific responsible parties. 'These were most likely by a serial killer', and these were probably by Juarez cartel members.

    I don't know how much credence I give to the whole 'Hostel' scenario of murder for hire, it could be true, but it's hard to believe that many people would want to murder young women, and it would be profitable enough to be sanctioned.

    I don't know how much of a success any book would be, if a movie with Jennifer Lopez didn't even get released to theaters. I'm ordering Bowden's new book, 'El Sicario', see what insight I can get from that one.

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  9. This incident was probably some stupid crap like the girls were dating some Artist Assassins so the Barrio Astecas killed them or vise versa. What since-less crap. Or it could have been a jealous boyfriend that had been on a 5 day speed or crack run. The sociopaths created from this "war on drugs" will not be a passing fad in Mexico. The people of Juarez will be affected for at least 2 generations. I can't even imagine what it would be like to lose a daughter or son to this nonsense. TRC

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  10. girls in Mexico are kinda like stray cats...when they disappear..nothing is really done...nobody but their immediate family gives a shit

    and to tell the truth ..some of them kinda bring it on themselves by going for the flash trash gangsta boys...

    but in a country with no real future , can you really blame them for trying to have something...,any way they can

    it is really a sad fukn fact that in Mexico ...life has little value...better live for the day..it may be your last

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  11. @ J...I had my questions on the organ donor theory. Finding a match is not an easy job and the sanitary napkin for DNA was a little much to buy into. There is a huge demand for kidneys due to diabetes rates on the increase by leaps and bounds. As corrupt as Mexico is, it might be possible. I struggled with the snuff flick theory because no films have ever shown up. Unless that is just a very guarded and secretive group, it seems a flick would have surfaced somewhere. At first, I struggled with the street gang theory, but thinking about La Linea being involved and their direct contact with street gangs selling drugs, it became more acceptable. How better to instill sociopathic behavior than to force it.

    The politician twist was interesting and it had credence, however I just put him in the Juniors list.

    This started out to fast and furious for it to have begun in 1993. Do you remember the University of Texas student killed way back in the Devil Worship deal in Matamoras. That could have been something similar also.

    There was a person of interest in the early cases that I read in articles way back. His last name was Maynez not to be confused with the investigator with the same name. Spelling may be wrong on the name. He was the adopted some of a very rich couple in Juarez and disappeared to the US. He may have been the first. LOL, I wonder if he tried the same shit up here and one of these American Women killed his ass. Lol, he has never surfaced and is wanted for questioning.

    TRC

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  12. I agree this is crazy, Mexico aent getting any better!

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