Brazen ambush of Mexico City chief blamed on Jalisco cartel

Dozens of gunmen believed tied to the hyper-violent Jalisco Contemporary Period Cartel deployed for a fancy, multi-level damage of day ambush intended to assassinate Mexico City’s police chief

By

MARK STEVENSON Associated Press

June 27, 2020, 12: 32 PM

5 min read

MEXICO CITY —
Dozens of gunmen believed tied to the hyper-violent Jalisco Contemporary Period Cartel deployed for a fancy, multi-level damage of day ambush intended to assassinate Mexico City’s police chief in a single among the most brazen attacks in Mexico since the equally ruthless Zetas carved a path of fear at some level of the nation nearly a decade ago.

The attackers pale grenades and a .50-caliber sniper rifle to assault the chief’s armored vehicle early Friday, killing two of the his bodyguards and a girl driving by. Police chief Omar García Harfuch changed into shot within the shoulder, collar bone and the knee but changed into reported out of hazard.

He known as the attack “cowardly” and blamed it on the Jalisco cartel, which has established a nearly national presence, from the white-sand beaches of Cancun to Mexico City and the nation’s most fundamental ports, to boot to in key border cities historically managed by other cartels.

Police officers who converged on the scene on the capital’s iconic Paseo de la Reforma boulevard within the upscale Lomas neighborhood rounded up a dozen of the shooters, who were hauled off for questioning, authorities talked about.

Later Friday, capital police arrested an alleged head of the Jalisco Contemporary Period hitmen, suggesting he could perchance were the mastermind of the attack, talked about a Mexico City police legit who changed into no longer authorized to be quoted by name.

The legit talked about police arrested José Armando Briseño on the east aspect of the city. Nicknamed “Cow,” he’s allegedly the group’s chief of hitmen within the city of Tonala in Jalisco.

The attack on the police chief changed into meticulously deliberate and alive to a total of 28 gunmen employed three weeks earlier than, talked about Ulises Lara, the spokesman for the Mexico City prosecutors suppose of job. Three separate seemingly ambush parts were predicament up on essential thoroughfares, including one — which wasn’t pale — within the heart of Mexico City, one block from the Independence Monument.

The gunmen were divided into four loads of cells, and so they received ski masks and weapons Thursday evening. They were taken to the ambush parts at 4 a.m. to lie in look forward to their target. They jumped from a truck and opened fireplace when Garcia’s convoy attempted to pass.

Lara talked about that of the suspects detained, one is Colombian and the different 11 are Mexicans from the capital and 5 states — Jalisco, Guerrero, Nayarit, Chihuahua and Michoacan.

It changed into the second excessive-profile attack this month, following the taking pictures loss of life of a federal come to a decision and his wife, bringing sad comparisons to Colombia’s drug wars of the 1980s and ’90s whereby drug traffickers robotically focused judges and police for assassination.

Mexico focused and dismantled the Zetas cartel after it killed migrants, unsuspecting voters and officials from 2010 to 2013. However it surely stays to be seen whether or no longer the authorities will proceed after the Jalisco cartel they components it did the Zetas.

“If they (Jalisco) are no longer made a priority target after this, I catch no longer know what is going down, one thing is terrible with the technique” of the authorities, talked about security analyst Alejandro Hope.

Mexico pale elite navy units and labored carefully with the US to maneuver after the Zetas cartel. However now, amid budget cuts and President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s protection of no longer straight confronting the cartels, it is miles unclear whether or no longer the authorities has the need or skill to fight Jalisco, particularly within the heart of the coronavirus pandemic.

“This more or less attack just isn’t any longer long-established, they crossed a line. You could read it like an distinctive act,” talked about Hope. “You possess two very extreme attacks in two weeks.”

Federal Safety Secretary Alfonso Durazo talked about Mexico’s intelligence agency interestingly had data that Jalisco Contemporary Period changed into planning an attack, but did no longer provide extra info.

It changed into unclear whether or no longer the attack changed into linked to most up to the moment crackdowns on Jalisco-affiliated gangs in Mexico City or to the police chief’s earlier work in federal investigations.

García, 37, is a broken-down head of the Federal Police investigation division and in 2016-2019 he led the department of the federal Criminal expert Identical old’s Office that oversees investigations and arrests of organized crime members. Sooner than being named Mexico City police chief, he spent several months as the mayor’s intelligence coordinator.

Jalisco is the identical gang that U.S. prosecutors talked about tried to buy belt-fed M-60 machine weapons within the US and that once shot down a Mexican navy helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade. In October, the cartel’s gunmen ambushed and killed 14 suppose police officers in Michoacan.

Friday’s attack came two weeks after rumors swirled for a day that Jalisco’s leader, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, better identified as “El Mencho,” had been captured or killed — despite the indisputable fact that officials later denied that. Oseguera is the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s most-wished fugitive, with a $10 million worth on his head.

In March, U.S. authorities arrested hundreds of Jalisco operatives in raids at some level of the US. They talked about the group controls between one-third and two-thirds of the U.S. drug market.

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