UPDATED! September 21, 2022
San Felipe, BC:
"High Ranking Officers of the Municipal Police Force were Ambushed and Killed San Felipe police chiefs ambushed and shot. The Sinaloa Cartel is suspected of planning and executing the ambush style attack on three high ranking officials police officers within the San Felipe Municipal Police force, killing two and wounding the Police Chief. Deputy Director Nava Erick Aguilera of the Municipal Police in San Felipe, Baja California along with Commander Norberto Ornelas were shot dead in an ambush on Tuesday evening, while the police chief who accompanied them – Ramón Valdez Salas – was also wounded but survived the armed attack. The state prosecutor, Iván Carpio, revealed that the initial investigation indicates that the Sinaloa Cartel could possibly be involved with the attack, as tactical gear retrieved from one of the assailants was marked with the number 701 and the acronym JG; well known emblems of the clothing brand created by the family of drug trafficker Joaquín Guzmán Loera, alias “El Chapo” San Felipe police chiefs ambushed and shot Deputy Director Nava Erick Aguilera and Commander Norberto Ornelas At a press conference held in Mexicali, the lead prosecutor, Iván Carpio, confirmed that one of the alleged perpetrators was caught and arrested with at least eight men all together having been identified as part of the attack where they surrounded the police commanders in their vehicle, firing on them from close range with high-caliber weapons. The prosecutor went on to say that he believes the attack was planned and carried out by a criminal cell called “Los Chapitos.”
According to the official report, the ambush occurred at 6:40 PM on Tuesday, September 20, 2022, in San Felipe where the three police officials were aboard a vehicle when they were attacked by at least eight individuals who surrounded them aboard two different vehicles; a Chevrolet Tahoe SUV and a white Dodge RAM pickup. The attackers descended from their vehicles armed wearing tactical gear and carry high caliber rifles and one handgun, firing on the police commanders from different angles. Nearby the scene were other police elements who quickly responded in an attempt to repel the attack while also calling for additional backup. San Felipe police chiefs ambushed and shot Upon being fired upon by the other officers, the attackers abandoned their vehicles and fled on foot, leaving behind the weapons and tactical gear used during the ambush. Security elements that arrived at the scene found 38 shell casings, in addition to securing more than nine thousand cartridges of various calibers, including 23, 50 and 7.65X39. 10 firearms in total were found on the scene; one handgun and nine automatic rifles including a 50 caliber rife and several AK-47’s in addition to AR15’s in addition to tactical gear and seven bulletproof vests identified with the initials “701” and “JG”."
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UPDATE August 19
URGENT NEWS BULLETIN
URGENT UPDATE!
Friday, August 19, 2022
Travel Media Group (TMG)
Publisher Gary Newsome
Violent crime — such as homicide, kidnapping, carjacking, and robbery — is widespread and common in (Baja Norte) Mexico
The State Department has released a notice warning U.S. citizens of the risk of violent crime, including possible kidnapping, in Mexico and urging them to (TMG) stop all travel to Mexico.
“Violent crime — such as homicide, kidnapping, carjacking, and robbery — is widespread and common in Mexico”, the State Department wrote in its notice issued Wednesday.
The department added, “The U.S. government has limited ability to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens in many areas of Mexico” due to restrictions on travel to the country by government employees.
(TMG) Lets be clear, all travel to Baja Norte is now, not advised through 2022. Government employees, tasked with assisting citizens, themselves, in Mexico are hereby under travel and work restrictions.
The notice outlined restrictions given to U.S. government employees, encouraging all U.S. citizens to adhere to the same precautions. “U.S. government employees may not travel between cities after dark, may not hail taxis on the street, and must rely on dispatched vehicles, including app-based services like Uber and regulated taxi stands”, the notice said.
The State Department added specific warnings for each state in Mexico, placing a level 4 “Do Not Travel” advisory.
(TMG) Because of crime and kidnapping, travel to and within Baja Norte is curtailed throughout 2022.
The State Department released a shelter-in-place alert in five cities located in the state of Baja California last weekend after criminal gangs caused fires, roadblocks and increased police activity. “Transnational criminal organizations compete in the border area to establish narco-trafficking and human smuggling routes”, the most recent notice elaborated on the Baja California area.
The entire Ensenada municipal region to Guerrero Negro is a high-value crime area for organized criminals and groups.
“Most homicides appeared to be targeted; however, criminal organization assassinations and territorial disputes can result in bystanders being injured or killed”.
(TMG) Numerous victims of murder, kidnapping and assault have been identified through their active engagement with the sport of 'motor-racing'. As reported in BajaRacingNews.com over 25 years, just because you're an American citizen or international traveler, will not save you from criminal activity.
The state department advisory today added that some U.S. citizens have been victims of kidnapping in border cities like Tijuana.
ORIGINAL REPORTING
Friday, August 12, 2022
AP/RUETERS NEWS WIRES
Travel Media Group Warns American Citizens "DO NOT TRAVEL TO NORTHERN BAJA CALIFORNIA".
The Tijuána Office of the American Consulate continued, "Avoid Northern Baja and Tijuána as Fires, Roadblocks Reported Throughout The State Of Northern Baja California". This warning is in effect through the end of the year, 2022.
"Mexican Drug and Human Cartels Destroy Peace In Baja-Mexico"
On TV screens across the globe, relatives of a woman who died in a fire at a convenience store that was burned by unknown attackers, in a simultaneous attack of fires in different parts of Baja California, according to local media, react outside the store on Thursday, August 11.
Hundreds of Mexican soldiers were sent to Northern Baja California (Baja Norte) Friday, August 12, while violence sparked in the border town near California may be linked to a series of incidents in Tijuána and the surrounding area.
The situation began in Tijuána with a prison face-off between members of two rival cartels, which caused a riot and shootouts that left 11 people dead, most of them civilians, authorities said. The violence then apparently moved across the peninsula. The U.S. Consulate in Tijuana warned American citizens late Friday to not travel into Mexico, Northern Baja Mexico, while acknowledging that officials are “aware of reports of multiple vehicle fires, roadblocks, and heavy police activity in Tijuána, Mexicali, Rosarito, Ensenada and Tecate throughout the northern state of Baja Norte.
The Twitter post noted that U.S. government employees have been instructed to shelter in place until further notice.
Consulate officials had issued a travel alert for northern Baja California last month.
According to one account, 19 fires had been reported throughout northern Baja California. Broadcast media showed images of multiple vehicles, including vans and delivery trucks, ablaze. Tijuána’s Presidente Montserrat Caballero urged cartels to leave innocents alone, while various police agencies and other government organizations posted warnings or closure notices to social media.
Another official, Baja Governor Marina del Pilar, condemned the violence on Twitter, and urged residents to remain calm. She said “there are already detainees” being held who are believed “responsible for the events”.
The violence began Thursday in the border city of Tijuána, just over the border from San Ysidro, California. Los Chapos, members of the infamous Sinaloa Cartel formerly led by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, and local group Los Mexicles clashed in a prison in the afternoon, Deputy Security Minister Ricardo Mejia said. A riot then broke out, in which two people were shot to death and four left with bullet wounds, Mejia said, speaking alongside Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador at a regular news conference. Another 16 were injured in the fighting, he said. Officials did not say what caused the clash. But the rampage spread outside the prison to the city due to the Mexicles, authorities said, and nine civilians died including four employees of a radio station, among them one announcer.
Across town, convenience stores were shot at and set on fire. FEMSA, the parent company of the Oxxo chain, said in a statement that one of its employees and a woman who was applying for a job died in the violence. Around 1 a.m. Friday morning, six alleged members of Mexicles were arrested by local police, with help from the Army and National Guard, Mejia said. By Friday afternoon, some 300 Army soldiers were scheduled to arrive in town, with another 300 to follow. “(Ciudad Juarez) Mayor Cruz Perez has let us know that (the city) is now in a state of emergency; public order has not been re-established”, Mejia said.
“We hope it doesn’t happen again, because innocent people were attacked”, the president said. Thursday’s attacks follow clashes between cartels and the military in central Mexico, which led to taxis, buses and some 20 Oxxo stores being set ablaze, Lopez Obrador said.
On Friday, hundreds of Mexican troops were dispatched to the northern border city of Tijuana, northern Baja California in a bid to bolster security after a series of apparently random gang attacks across town on Thursday and early Friday that left at least 11 dead— including a popular radio personality and three of his co-workers, and two inmates shot in a prison riot.
Assailants armed with guns and Molotov cocktails targeted convenience stores, gas stations, a pizza shop and vehicles. The killings just across the Tijuána River from San Ysidro came days after roaming bands of criminals hundreds of miles away to the south set fire to dozens of shops, buses and cars, and threw up roadblocks on major arteries across a wide swath of the state of northern Baja California.
Among the sites attacked there were some two dozen outlets of Oxxo, a nationwide fast-food, convenience-store chain. Authorities reported one fatality. The dramatic incidents in distinct parts of the country were apparently unrelated: Officials said the bloody prison riot in Tijuana sparked the rampage there in acts of retaliation, while authorities blamed the chaos in northern Baja California on cartel leaders outraged about plans to arrest them.
The episodes underscored the ability of Mexico’s multibillion-dollar criminal underground — outfitted with high-powered arms and flush with cash from drug trafficking, extortion rings, migrant smuggling and other rackets — to create turmoil. Even many Mexicans accustomed to rampant lawlessness were stunned at this week’s anarchic images from Ensenada, northern Baja's second most populous city, in Baja Norte state. "The Mexican state has been overrun and can no longer protect its citizens", tweeted Adrián López, director of the local newspaper.
The deaths of the civilians in Baja Mexico seemed especially shocking to many in a nation where people are accustomed to gangland assassinations of rival mobsters, politicians, journalists and others whose work or activism puts them in the crosshairs of criminals.
In fact, the murders of “innocents” have long been a byproduct of Mexico’s decades-long drug conflict. Many have been collateral victims— killed, for instance, in gang massacres targeting rivals in bars, restaurants, homes and other locales. Sowing terror via the deliberate targeting of civilians with spectacular outbursts of firepower has also been part of the texture of Mexico’s tumultuous recent history. “Random acts of violence create chaos and create fear and allow you to gain a tactical advantage over the authorities and your rivals”, said Alejandro Hope, a Mexican security analyst.
Most notorious, perhaps, was the 2008 grenade attack on a crowd gathered in a main plaza to celebrate Mexican Independence Day in the central city of Morelia. At least eight were killed and more than 100 wounded in one of the defining assaults by traffickers in the early days of Mexico’s so-called War on Drugs.
Ensenada, with its strategic location connecting many drug corridors a key cross-border smuggling center, has long been a hub of mob mayhem, a place where gangsters strung slain rivals’ bodies from bridges or dumped their beheaded corpses in vacant lots. The so-called birthday party massacre in 2010 left 14 dead at a high school birthday gathering in Ensenada.
The systemic failure to bring murderers to justice in a country where most killings go unsolved only adds to the incentive for criminals to target civilians, Hope added. “If you go after random people in the streets, you should become a priority target for authorities”, Hope said. “But that does not happen. It sends a message [to criminals] that this is a good tactic”.
The latest attacks have intensified an overriding sense of insecurity for many in places such as northern Baja California state, where rival gangs battle for control of drug-trafficking routes and black-market gasoline, while extorting local businesses, big problems in Ensenada.
"There's no government here: Here the narcos are the government," said Rogelio Cornejo Díaz, 54, who runs a fruit and vegetable stand in Ensenada, one of the cities hard hit in the rolling attacks late Tuesday and early Wednesday.
"If the president thinks all is fine and tranquil, he should come here sometime with his wife and children to see for himself". Violence has ebbed somewhat in northern Baja Mexico in the last decade, but Thursday’s events demonstrated the enduring power of criminal mafias — both sophisticated, trans-national cartels and lower-level street and prison gangs. The trouble in the border city began Thursday afternoon in a dispute between rival gangs at a state prison, Ricardo Mejía, Mexico's deputy security minister, told reporters at the president's daily news conference.
Battling each other, Mejía said, were groups known as Los Chapos — apparently linked to the Sinaloa Cartel formerly headed by Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, now imprisoned for life in the United States — and a local prison band known as Los Mexicles. A riot left two prisoners dead and at least 20 injured, Mejia said. It was unclear what caused the dispute. But authorities said Mexicles members outside the prison went on a rampage, killing at least nine people.
The victims included the four staffers of Mega Radio —shot dead in the parking lot of a Caesars Pizza outlet. It was unclear if Alán González, the announcer, and his three colleagues were random victims or were targeted.
Northern Baja California, Mexico is one of the world's most dangerous states/countries for journalists.
Also among the dead were two women who apparently succumbed to smoke inhalation after the Rapiditos Bip Bop convenience store (part of the Oxxo chain) was attacked with a Molotov cocktail. María del Refugio Ramírez, 54, was a longtime employee, and Saira Janet de Santiago Castro, 18, was applying for a job at the store, according to media reports. Neighborhood residents erected a shrine outside the store Friday. Another man in Tijuána was reported shot dead in his truck on Thursday, while another victim, also male, was fatally shot on the street, authorities said. The youngest victim was a 12-year-old who was shot at a Circle K store, officials said. He died Friday after doctors were unable to revive him. Most shops and offices in the border city were closed Friday and over the weekend as many feared a repeat of the violence. Police and army vehicles patrolled the streets. The dramatic events of recent days sparked a renewed round of criticism of President López Obrador’s controversial security strategy. In seeking election, López Obrador promised to take a more holistic approach to fighting crime. He vowed to reject the militarized strategy of his predecessors and boost social programs for young people vulnerable to joining gangs.
Consulate officials had issued a travel alert for northern Baja California last month.
– AP/Reuters and staff reports
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