The entire police force in a small Mexican town abruptly resigned Tuesday after its new headquarters was viciously attacked by suspected drug cartel gunmen.
All 14 police officers in Los Ramones, a rural town in northern Mexico, fled the force in terror after gunmen fired more than 1,000 bullets and flung six grenades at their headquarters on Monday night.
No one was injured in the attack. Mayor Santos Salinas Garza told local media that the officers resigned because of the incident. The gunmen’s 20-minute shooting spree destroyed six police vehicles and left the white and orange police station pocked with bullet holes, the Financial Times reported.
The station had been inaugurated just three days earlier. Los Ramones is in the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon, which has been a war zone of turf violence between two of the country’s fiercest drug gangs, the Zetas and the Gulf cartel. Police have blamed members of both cartels for attacks on several police stations throughout the area. Several mayors in the region have been assassinated. About 90% of forces have less than 100 officers, and 61% of cops earn less than $322 a month, according to the Finanical Times.
Mexico’s intelligence chief said this summer that nearly 30,000 people have died in drug related crimes since 2006.
Umm,
Wheres the Mex army??
Did they QUIT?
Corruption, cowards, dysfunctional society,… Only in society where cheating and crime are accepted can this happen. Mexican army (@#1)? – in any decent country or town local people would rise and risk their lives to get rid of this type of crime. No need for army. Or backbone-less police. But they are not uprising. Your choice of cowards or bribed bunch. Shame on Mexican people.
#2 for that to work you would have to kill the entire organization. A farmer doesn’t have the weapons or training. They know also the gangs would slaughter their whole family as an example. The army is bribed so there’s no way to implement a major operation.
Not to long and this sort of violence will spread North of the border. Just wait.
These types know our police forces, especially in large cities, are maxed out dealing with just everyday crime, add this stuff to it, along with assassinations, IED’s etc. Local and state governments wont know which way to turn.
If only this was my home town PD. That Dick so deserves it.
This gives me hope though. IF the Mexicans can do it so can others.
So how’s zat war on drugz goin’?
Just fine. They gots a war & we gots all the drugz we want.
#2 @dusanmal What do you think this is, the “Magnificent Seven” – In the real fucking world the bad guys have all the guns and muscle and the innocent people have none.
But if this is all about getting drugs into the US, why don’t you just cut the demand and make them legal. Or rather, not criminal. That way, hey… no need for importation, drug gangs have no market.
I’m only suggesting this as IT WORKED FOR PORTUGAL!! They had a major drug/gang problem. Then they de-criminalised drugs and all of a sudden the cartels went out of business and went elsewhere. Just saying…..
I feel sorry for the US citizens living in the border states. Obama will do nothing to protect them.
#10 Where the hell are you getting your news, fox? Obama increased troops along the Arizona border by 1,500. The border is quieter than it ever has been in 20 years. Could have been more if troops weren’t needed in Afghanistan, you know that war that Bush started, then ignored.
#11: Yes, 1500 “troops” aka National Guardsmen were sent to the border along with others to Texas and NM. However, these National Guardsmen do NOT carry weapons and can only survey the land then radio in to the Border Patrol that they see illegals crossing the border. The 1500 “troops” might as well be holding up signs saying “Turn Away. Pretty Please?”
#12. You must forgive ArianneB, She lives “somewhere” near the border, and that makes her an expert on a border that stretches across four states.
Sorry ArianneB if I got your gender wrong, you just sound like a whiney liberal chick.
Soon the whole “immigration reform” debate will be a moot point. Illegal Mexican immigrants in the US will be able to claim asylum to prevent them from being deported. Sending them back to Mexico will put them in a gravely dangerous situation. You heard it here first.
“Illegal Mexican immigrants in the US will be able to claim asylum to prevent them from being deported. Sending them back to Mexico will put them in a gravely dangerous situation. ”
They can stay in the US if they enlist in the Border Patrol for 10 years and learn English.
Carrot and stick deal: they get to stay in the US if they do their hitch honorably. If they desert, they go back to Juarez at gunpoint.
Can you blame them?
Thanks for the weapons, you bastard gringo arms dealers… “Better let them stinky Mexicans kill amongst themselves, we get a good deal for those weapons AND, we get the drugs too!” Shame ON YOU.
What we haven’t realized as a society, you Americans and we Mexicans, is that we don’t have a country of our own anymore, only corporations, dictating what goes and what doesn’t.
We can accuse each other to death, Americans consuming the drugs, Mexicans being corrupt. But the drug lords, and the big interests protecting the drug trade between our countries will be laughing their asses off, ridiculing you and us.
@dusanmal wrote: “Only in society where cheating and crime are accepted can this happen.” Actually, this happens in a society where gun ownership is illegal, and only the bad guys have guns. If the citizenry can fight back, this sort of thing much less likely.
No, this is because the War on Drugs is a complete failure. The Mexican cartels are sitting on a step in the chain where the profits are 500-1000%, and have been for 2+ decades. They are very active in all sectors of the Mexican economy. The story of modern Mexico can’t be told without the cartels.
Now even if you could kill off all cartel members at once that wouldn’t be the end. The area already has transport experts, routes, other specialized services.
It would be Guatemalans and Salvadorans first, probably with a growing Chinese element. On and on forever.
This clusterfuck sits in balance against the disapproval of some members of society for the private actions of others.
We made this. Congratulations.
pedro #20
Let me return your attention to the rapidly disappearing nation state known as Mexico. Drug people are irritating, but they aren’t cancerous. Look at the severity of the problem on the business side in Mexico. Run the game forward 10 years. The same stuff will be going on.
If serious danger of death, likely including torture beforehand, isn’t enough to dissuade Cartel applicants what is the US going to add to the equation?
There are some things you can kill, and others you can’t. This is the latter.
I don’t know but “assume” that since there were no deaths, deaths weren’t the object of this demonstration? I assume a call was made to the stations to: get out, and the cops wisely did.
I can’t tell who is the bigger douche here. Dismal or Pedro. Amazing how much “in your face” an issue and its solution can be and yet you two f*cktards want to ignore that PROHIBITION, its implementation and consequences, and its repeal and consequences, is not a complete roadmap.
Lets see: Dismal–douche-bag plus visions of guns solving anything.
Pedro–douche-bag bag plus vision of inappropriate analogies.
OK–Dismal is the bigger douche.
Ha, ha. Silly Douche-Bags.
Can anyone tell me why protecting American coke heads from killing themselves is worth more than avoiding the collapse of our nation’s southern neighbor? (Heavens, that MIGHT be expensive.)
#9
I’m only suggesting this as IT WORKED FOR PORTUGAL!! They had a major drug/gang problem. Then they de-criminalised drugs and all of a sudden the cartels went out of business and went elsewhere. Just saying
They did not go away. In Portugal the law eliminates jail time for drug users but maintains criminal penalties for dealers. So the cartels are there still selling drugs and still being prosecuted by law.
They are running coke through Cape Verde, Mauritania and Senegal and into Portugal, Spain and the UK. A lot of drugs even opiates coming through West Africa.
It didn’t stop it. It just made it so if you have small (up to ten day) supplies of it you could get treatment instead of jail. It is STILL a crime, just the penalties are lighter.
Cursor_
We signed NAFTA with this third world country why? Is it not strange that Obama fails to address this serious problem so close to our border?
Pedro==what do you think the effects of Prohibition were and then the repeal of it? Why are “drugs” any different than alcohol or tobacci?
Since you do make intelligent posts, I’m interested on what stops you from thinking on this issue. I’m hoping its ignorance and we all here can give you a few links to educate yourself.
Gee, I hope its not unthinking donkey riding dogma. But – we’ll see.
Pedro==gee, you got nothing then huh?
I really did expect more.
But then really, what “could” you have???
I’ll nudge you along just in case you actually don’t even know “at all” what you are talking about, but in a nutshell:
Before prohibition people got drunk and drank to excess because of all sorts of bad reasons. They ruined their lives and spent their paychecks leaving their families in peril. The moral majority knew this was a bad thing and the cure was to make drugs illegal==hence prohibition.
But when prohibition was passed, the addicts could only get their drugs from criminals who charged more because they could as there was no “free market.” There was only a criminal activity. I know that may be confusing, but they aren’t exactly the same.
So, criminals made lots of untaxed money by selling the addicts all the drugs they wanted but other criminals wanted in on this lucrative artificially high profit activity==so there were gang wars which got innocent people killed/cops corrupted/public officials taking bribes etc. Think of Mexico today.
Things got so bad the people repealed prohibition and people could do drugs again. Criminal activity surrounding these drugs dropped to negligible levels and tax revenue soared. corruption stopped because officials were not being paid to be corrupt.
See how prohibition shows us that keeping anything people really want doesn’t work and that making it legal is better overall?
Of course, some people still drink to excess but the harm caused by that is small compared to losing your entire society to drug cartels.
Now==your critique for legalizing drugs is what?
No pedro, I’ve met you more than half way. It matters little what the “motives” of the drug dealers are. Its a free market and the consumers control.
With your meme on sheeple, why do you want to keep the druggies under Federal Control?
Silly Pedro.
What is going on in Mexico?
Why can’t their state and army destroy these criminals?
It looks very weird…
Jopa, read my #19. Think of the border region as a money factory. Nothing is going to change that except…
Pedro – do you think the gov’t is NOT involved in trafficking? At the least peripherally?
Pedro–you are incoherent.
Sad you have so little to offer, I thought you had more. The argument to legalize drugs has NOTHING TO DO WITH thinking they are “fine and dandy.”
Your intellect doesn’t extend past a bumper sticker slogan. Its a good thing you can’t maintain your attention long enough to be really annoying like Alfie does, and by comparison, that makes him look pretty good compared to you.
Its not macho to look so stupid.