A police chief was killed and three civilians were wounded by gunmen in southern Veracruz, a state on Mexico’s Gulf coast where drug-related violence has been on the rise due to a turf war involving three cartels.
Ciudad Isla municipal police department coordinator Ricardo Reyes Alvarez was gunned down on Tuesday afternoon, officials said.
Gunmen armed with AR-15 assault rifles opened fire on the police chief at a car wash, wounding three employees.
Reyes Alvarez tried to reach a nearby hospital but died before he could get there, officials said.
One of the car wash employees wounded in the attack is listed in serious condition.
Shootouts between the security forces and gunmen working for drug cartels have left more than 50 suspected criminals dead in the past six months in Veracruz, which is in eastern Mexico.
The La Familia Michoacana, Los Zetas and Gulf drug cartels all have a presence in Veracruz, 6th Military Zone commander Gen. Carlos Rene Aguilar Paez said Tuesday.
Los Zetas and the Gulf cartel are waging a turf war in the Gulf state, Aguilar Paez said.
Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano, known as “El Lazca,” deserted from the Mexican army in 1999 and formed Los Zetas with three other soldiers, all members of an elite special operations unit, becoming the armed wing of the Gulf drug cartel.
After several years on the payroll of the Gulf cartel, Los Zetas, considered Mexico’s most violent criminal organization, went into the drug business on their own account and now control several lucrative territories.
A total of 15,270 people died in drug-related violence in Mexico last year, and nearly 40,000 people have died since President Felipe Calderon declared war on the country’s cartels shortly after taking office in December 2006.
Calderon has deployed tens of thousands of soldiers and Federal Police officers across the country to combat drug cartels and other criminal organizations.
The anti-drug operation, however, has failed to put a dent in the violence due, according to experts, to drug cartels’ ability to buy off the police and even high-ranking officials.
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