Juarez ground zero in Mexican drug war

Heavily armed gangs outgun cops; federal officers, military called in
By Franco Ordonez
McClatchy Newspapers
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 04.06.2008

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — The gunmen caught their target on his way home.

Police Cmdr. Juan Manuel Flores had just finished his shift on Easter and was pulling onto a dirt road in his quiet neighborhood of run-down adobe homes.

Out of nowhere, two SUVs darted out and cut him off, forcing him to drive his car into a palm tree on the sidewalk.

Neighbors scattered for cover as masked men stepped out of the vehicles and for six minutes fired a barrage of AK-47 fire into the officer's blue 1998 Dodge Neon, police and witnesses said.

One of the masked men then walked to Flores' battered car and fired a final shot to ensure that the officer was dead.

"He never had a chance to reach for his pistol," said Jaime Torres, a spokesman for the police department.

The killing March 23 was the eighth assassination of a police officer this year in this border town across from El Paso, Texas. Several days later, the Mexican government sent in the army.

More than 200 people have been slain in Ciudad Juarez this year in what amounts to a turf war between drug cartels — the growing Sinaloa cartel and the local Juarez cartel — over lucrative smuggling routes to the United States.