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Suspects in a kidnapping case are presented Friday at the Baja California Attorney General's Office. The victim was unharmed, but one suspect died in a confrontation at the safe house with members of the anti-kidnapping squad.

2010 comes to a turbulent end in Tijuana

By Sandra Dibble
San Diego Union Tribune
December 31, 2010 at 7:12 p.m.

TIJUANA — The year ended turbulently in Tijuana, with five homicides registered in a seven-hour period late Thursday, and the dramatic rescue of a kidnap victim on Friday by Baja California agents following a gunbattle that left one suspect dead.

Four suspects were in custody Friday afternoon on the heels of a pursuit and confrontation with members of the anti-kidnapping squad at the safe house in Fraccionamiento Cubillas, a residential area south of downtown.

The Baja California Attorney General’s Office said in a statement that the suspects reported to a gang leader known as Juan Francisco Sillas Rocha, and that his group dedicates itself to killing, kidnapping and drug trafficking.

The kidnap victim was unharmed, they said. He was identified only as a person in the transportation business who was kidnapped on Thursday in eastern Tijuana.

The incidents brought the number of killings in Tijuana in 2010 to 818 by Friday evening, making it the second most violent in the city’s history; the record was 2008 with 844 violent deaths, dropping to 664 in 2009.

While violence in heavily-transited public areas of Tijuana has dropped noticeably in recent months since the capture of key drug gang leaders early this year, killings have continued in what authorities have described as a continuing battle for the domestic drug market in the city. Authorities say that in many cases, the victims are small-time drug dealers.

Thursday’s victims ranged in age from 20 to 35, several of them shot with AK-47 assault rifles used by drug gangs. It was unclear whether any of these crimes were linked, and authorities did not immediately report a reason for the renewed violence.

According to the Baja California Attorney General's Office, the killings began at 5:10 p.m. in a residential development in eastern Tijuana, with a report of a man who had been shot repeatedly; agents counted 62 spent rounds from an AK-47 assault rifle by the body. The victim, who has not been identified, was between the ages of 20 and 25, according to a statement.

Agents also found a small digital scale, and “green and dry herb” wrapped in a small plastic bag, as well as small image of La Santa Muerte, a popular folk saint whose followers include drug traffickers, in the victim’s pocket.

An hour later, agents responded to a report of a second male victim in the back seat of a 2002 Lincoln with California plates, parked outside an apartment complex near City Hall in the city’s Rio Zone. The unidentified victim was between the ages of 20 and 25, and had a tattoo of la Santa Muerte on one arm.

A third male victim was found at about 8:10 p.m., wrapped in a blanket and left at the side of a house in a residential development a few miles southeast of downtown. The victim, who was not identified, had an electric extension cord around his neck.

Shortly after 11:30 p.m., the discovery of a fourth unidentified male was found beneath sheet on a street of a neighborhood off the free road to Tecate. The victim, identified as Carlos Ariel Nieto Gomez, was between 25 and 30 years old and had been shot with an AK-47.

The fifth victim was found a minute before midnight in a neighborhood in Tijuana’s Mesa de Otay section. The victim, who had been shot repeatedly, was identified as Jose de Jesus Monarrez de la Rosa, between the ages of 30 and 35.

Friday’s shootout and rescue of the kidnap victim followed the detention of two suspects, one of whom led agents to the safe house, according to the Baja California Attorney General’s Office. The agents were met with gunfire and a fragmentation grenade, but it did not detonate, authorities said.

The group is under investigation for the kidnapping of three women in November, who were subsequently liberated. The detained suspects were identified as Luis Antonio Murrillo, Fernando Chacon, Hector Adan Sarabia and Juan Jose Hernandez. The dead suspect remained unidentified.


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Sad conditions... very sad indeed.

So, just how does this square with all the recent hoopla about how the crime decreased significantly under the supervision of the outgoing jefe?

Maybe it does. This is new violence and he is no longer at the helm.

Coincidence?