Mexico Killings Include Several From U.S. Training Program

May 27, 2008

If this is your first time visiting National Terror Alert you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. The National terror Alert feed features breaking news, alerts and bulletins on demand and it's free of charge..
You will only see this message on your first visit to the site. Thanks for visiting!

When Mexico’s acting federal police chief was gunned down inside his home this month, U.S. law enforcement officials took special note. The U.S. ambassador called him a hero.

Edgar Millán Gómez, it turns out, had been part of a little-known U.S. training program to create special investigative units, or SIUs. From 2002 to 2006, as many as 298 special agents have been vetted by Mexico and trained and equipped by the U.S. government at an estimated cost of $1.4 million, according to a report issued last year by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

But in killings dating to last year, at least three high-ranking federal agents who had received U.S. training have been gunned down, U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The killings dealt a blow to both governments’ efforts to battle powerful drug cartels and are designed to discourage other agents from cooperating with U.S. law enforcement, U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza said in an interview.

“If … they continue to target those individuals that have been effective, and with which we have worked closely, you’ve got to ask yourself, how are they [Mexican officials] going to find good people to take on these cartels in the face of these assassinations?” he said. “I get concerned that we’re on a slippery slide towards our own folks being exposed.

Source - Read More

Share and Enjoy: