Battle in Tijuana: A city 'burns' with narco violence

What the hell is happening in Tijuana? On Thursday military and police forces waged a three-hour Old West-style shootout with members of the Arellano Felix cartel who had holed up in a mansion in La Mesa, a middle-class neighborhood in central Tijuana where many of my relatives are from. One gunman was killed, and six kidnapping hostages were executed inside the house during the ordeal. Sounds like the narco men, desperate and vicious, murdered the ransom hostages just because they could. Two narco-tied police officials were among the suspects apprehended.

That night, my mother called from San Ysidro looking for me in Mexico City and left a message with the worried but calming voice that parents usually reserve for news that is sad and frightening. She said the city was "turning into Baghdad."

On Friday morning commuters in the Mexico City metro huddled around station newstands to read the screaming headlines: "Tijuana burns with killings," "War in Tijuana," "And now, even kindergartens." That last one referred to startling images of small schoolchildren in gray uniforms rushing away from the shootout, their little hands clasped over their ears. A preschool had been caught in the crossfire, signaling a new kind of low for the now-headless remnants of the Arellano Felix crew.

The low-grade civil warfare of the narco trade is climaxing in Mexico, in nearly every region of the country and across just about every demographic, children and popular musicians included. A domestic addiction epidemic is also becoming evident where one had not existed. The news is grim, day after day. El Universal reported Saturday that in the previous 24 hours 15 more people had been killed in narco-related violence in five states. And this morning, the Tijuana daily Frontera is reporting briefly that the delegational police chief in La Mesa was kidnapped on Saturday night.

Sucks for Tijuana, a city trying to enjoy its cultural and culinary renaissance. Now it seems my ancestral tierra is being defeated in spirit by a nationwide wild and bloody war -- between the government and the cartels, between the cartels themselves -- that claims many more victims than it does any readable successes or setbacks.

Links: San Diego Union-Tribune, Frontline, New York Times, AP, L.A. Times, Al Jazeera via Mexico Monitor, New York Times, El Universal, Frontera, New York Times Travel. * Image by Reuters.

Comments

[Mando]

As a Mexican, this is really sad and ridiculous. It's a tragedy that kids are getting caught in the middle of this. As for the musicians being targeted, a lot of them make a lot of money making narcocorridos and glorifying the same people behind these killings. Frankly, if you're gonna profit from all this violence you shouldn't be surprised if you're getting targeted yourself. These musicians should stop dealing and glorifying that garbage that is ruining Mexico.

Corridos weren't always about drugs, money and violence, in fact this whole trend reminds me of the debate about hip hop in American society.

[cindylu]

I heard/read about the shootings last week, but I just read about the police chief and the gun battle at his house in November. It's pretty mind-boggling and scary. I used to associate Tijuana with shopping for new shoes and getting medicines at the farmacias, not gun battles.

[-k-]

You don't hear much about this in west LA. I just read the NY Times article from October. It's awful. These things usually get a lot worse before they slowly get better.

[Amparo]

It's September and it's still bad. As a matter of fact, it's getting worst. These drug cartel's need to be stopped! They think they're above the law!
US citizens are getting killed because of this. The US government need to step in- obviously the Mexican authorities are all in it- that's why it's not getting better!