7 Police Officers Murdered In Tijuana Attacks
April 28, 2009 by national
Filed under Incident Reports
Heavily armed gunmen staged a series of surprise attacks against municipal police forces in this tense border city, killing seven and wounding three in brazen assaults that shattered a four-month period of relative calm.
Six police officers and an auxiliary officer died within a 45-minute span late Monday in ambushes at a hillside substation, on busy streets and outside an OXXO mini-mart, where four were killed in a hail of bullets, including one who tried to fight back.
“He took out his gun and tried to fire at them, but they shot him and he fell backward, and his eyes rolled up in his head,” said a teenager who witnessed the shooting in the tough Los Arenales neighborhood.
With authorities placing the blame on organized crime gunmen, municipal police Tuesday retreated to substations and headquarters and patrolled mostly in groups or with army escorts. The tension was palpable outside the 8th Street headquarters downtown, where motorcycle cops were being held back from patrol until further notice.
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Authorities said the attacks, by men firing AK-47 rifles from late model cars and SUVs, were preceded by a spate of threats over police radio frequencies. Such threats are so common, Leyzaola said, that authorities didn’t feel a need to take precautionary measures.
The first act of violence against police Monday occurred about 9:15 a.m., when a female officer was wounded, shot in the back while on patrol in her vehicle near the airport. But the frenzy of attacks erupted at 8 p.m. in the ramshackle Los Arenales neighborhood of east Tijuana, where residents say police rarely venture. The four police officers arrived at the mini-mart to take a report of an assault and were ambushed as they left.
Witnesses said two or three cars pulled up and that several masked men opened fire with high-caliber automatic weapons. The officers didn’t stand a chance, even though they were wearing bulletproof vests, the witnesses said.
Two were shot in the back and fell near the door. A female officer was struck in the face and died while trying to take cover under a car. The fourth was shot in the neck and died with his gun still in his right hand.
The teenager who witnessed the attack said he placed his sisters on the floor and then peeked outside and saw the last officer go down.
