Tijuana officers stated automobiles had been burned at about 10 factors across the metropolis, and Mayor Montserrat Caballero blamed it on disputes between drug gangs.
Caballero issued a public attraction to “organized crime,” the time period utilized in Mexico for drug cartels, to cease the rising pattern of concentrating on harmless civilians.
“Today we’re saying to the organized crime teams which might be committing these crimes, that Tijuana goes to stay open and deal with its residents, and we additionally ask them to settle their money owed with those that didn’t pay what they owe, not with households and hard-working residents.”
The extent of the violence was nonetheless unclear Saturday. Late Friday, the U.S. Consulate General in Tijuana stated in an announcement that it “is conscious of reviews of a number of automobile fires, roadblocks, and heavy police exercise in Tijuana, Mexicali, Rosarito, Ensenada, and Tecate.”
The mayor’s remark about remaining open was an obvious reference to the border metropolis of Ciudad Juarez, throughout from El Paso, Texas, the place some courses and public occasions had been cancelled after related violence on Thursday.
Alleged gang members went on a taking pictures spree in Ciudad Juarez, killing 9 individuals, together with 4 workers of a radio station, after a combat between rival gangs at a neighborhood jail left two inmates lifeless.
On Tuesday, drug cartel gunmen burned automobiles and companies within the western states of Jalisco and Guanajuato in response to an try and arrest a high-ranking cartel chief of the Jalisco cartel.
The space round Tijuana, which borders southern California, is a profitable drug-trafficking hall lengthy dominated by the Arellano Felix cartel however which has since grow to be a battle floor between numerous gangs, together with the Jalisco and Sinaloa cartels.
Speaking in regards to the Ciudad Juarez violence Thursday, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador stated: “They attacked the civilian, harmless inhabitants like a form of revenge. It wasn’t only a conflict between two teams, however it obtained to the purpose the place they started to shoot civilians, harmless individuals. That is essentially the most unlucky factor on this affair.”
Four workers of the MegaRadio station who had been broadcasting a reside promotional occasion exterior a pizza retailer in Ciudad Juarez had been killed within the shootings.
Such random violence will not be with out precedent in Mexico.
In June of final yr, a rival faction of the Gulf cartel entered the border metropolis of Reynosa and killed 14 individuals the governor recognized as “harmless residents.” The army responded and killed 4 suspected gunmen.
And cartels in Mexico steadily hijack automobiles and burn them to distract police or forestall them from pursuing gunmen.
