14-year-old boy among latest slain in Juárez

By Daniel Borunda / El Paso Times

Article Launched: 05/21/2008 12:00:00 AM MDT

Juárez's newly appointed public safety secretary, Roberto Orduña Cruz, urged residents to get involved to help stop a crime wave that has left more than 300 dead this year.

Orduña Cruz on Tuesday asked residents to report crime anonymously, even as the killings continued with four more homicides reported, including the fatal shooting of a 14-year-old boy.

"The citizenry should have confidence in authorities, confidence we are looking to gain," Orduña Cruz said in a statement. In coming days, he added, changes to the police force will be announced.

On Tuesday, Chihuahua Sen. Ramon Galindo, who is a former mayor of Juárez, responding to complaints that the military crackdown on drug gangs spurred the violence, said that state and local authorities had not done enough to address the problem in the past.

"I will repeat it until it gets tiresome: There is not enough federal police or military to fight crime in a determined location if É municipal and state police are completely infiltrated by narco-traffickers," Galindo said.