May 21, 2008
By Michael Webster: Investigative Reporter
Rosarito Beach Mexico: Mexican authorities say they are investigating a shooting of a U.S. Marine early yesterday morning in which Mexican marines shot and wounded Pfc. Joshua Kendall Monnet who they say was driving a vehicle near a checkpoint.
Mexican military authorities based in Ensenada Baja said the marines at the checkpoint indicated to Monnet that he should stop his vehicle. They said the Mexican marines opened fire shortly thereafter. Most of the details that led to the shooting are being with hold by Mexican authorities. Calls to the Mexican Marines and other Ensenada civilian authorities shed very little light on what actually happened.
U.S. Marine authorities at Camp Pendleton California said the information was new to them; however they would be looking into the matter and check whether the shooting involved a Camp Pendleton Marine.
Gangland style executions of four people are believed Americans who were shot and killed near the main highway between Tijuana and Rosarito Beach. First reported by local police who were the first on the crime scene told the Laguna Journal by phone that five victims were executed, four of them appear to be Americans three men and a women. Police say," we are withholding the names of the victims until relatives in the states can be notified".
La Mesa woman Libby Gianna Craig believed to be an American was among four people found shot to death in a canyon near Rosarito Beach in Baja California, officials said.
The 28-year-old was in an area known as Morro Canyon along with three Afro-American males; Mexican police described three of the dead men as "Black Americans". Early reports also said more bodies were found in a separate location at different points of Playas de Rosarito, reported some Mexican papers.
Shortly after the Baja Attorney General de Justicia del Estado took over the investigation the official word changed and the press was told of only four people killed three Mexican nationals and one female of Mexican decent and denied that the male victims were Americans. This was a complete reversal from the on the crime scene investigating police officers who reported the three men were Afro-Americans and the names were being with hold pending notification of the next of kin in the states. A high ranking Mexican army officer has told the Laguna Journal that he and others have received word to not talk with or report any American deaths to the media.
Click on or Google Four or more Americans executed in Mexico
Assaults on American tourists have brought hard times to hotels and restaurants that dot Mexican beaches just south of the border from San Diego. Many Mexico business owners and the Mexican Chamber Of Commerce have been complaining that the American media has been reporting that Americans have been executed, kidnapped for ransom and victims of other crimes while in Mexico. Juan Ortiz a Tijuana business owner told the Journal that business is down some 50% since those recent news reports. I dont believe those reports all it is doing is scaring people and keeping them from coming to Mexico. Mr. Ortiz said.
Americans have long tolerated shakedowns by police who boost salaries by pulling over motorists for alleged traffic violations, and tourists know parts of Baja are a hotbed of drug-related violence. But a handful of attacks since summer by masked, armed bandits -- some of whom used flashing lights to appear like police -- marks a new extreme that has spooked even longtime visitors.
Lori Hoffman, a San Diego-area emergency room nurse, said she was sexually assaulted Oct. 23 by two masked men in front of her boyfriend, San Diego Surfing Academy owner Pat Weber, who was forced to kneel at gunpoint for 45 minutes. They were at a campground with about 30 tents, some 200 miles south of the border.
The men shot out windows of the couple's trailer and forced their way inside, ransacked the cupboards and left with about $7,000 worth of gear, including computers, video equipment and a guitar.
Click on or Google:
Crime-wary Americans shun popular strip of Mexican beaches : North ...
The Baja California officials genuinely would like to believe their own claims, but in reality crime is out of their control. The carjackings, kidnappings, rapes, robberies and executions are not being committed by ordinary criminals, the perpetrators are armed commando squads affiliated with Mexican drug cartels, gangs and Para-military units.
Reuters reported at 9:52 a.m. May 19,2008 dateline Rosarito Mexico, reported four people believed to be Americans were shot in the head and dumped in a notorious drug-smuggling area in northern Mexico near the border with California, Mexican police said Monday.
Police in the beach town of Rosarito, across the border from San Diego, said they discovered the bodies of three men and a woman Sunday in an abandoned car in a remote patch of scrubland near the Pacific coast.
Police concluded the victims were U.S. citizens and said the three men were of African-American appearance, the woman was Caucasian and a U.S. driver's license was found in the car, the spokesman said.
Click on or Google: Four people believed to be Americans were shot in the head
All the shootings were apparently deliberate, targeted, not just random bystanders caught up in the wave of violence that has engulfed U.S. Mexican border cities, Mexican authorities said.
Details are sketchy but the first murder occurred after two PM in the colony in the ejido Mina Primo Tapia's Fifth Municipality, where a late model vehicle was found abandoned with California plates. Inside the vehicle police discovered the body of an executed male subject, reported a spokesperson of the Rosarito police. Click on or Google: More Americans shot in Mexico
The Laguna Journal reported that four people, three African Americans and a white woman, was found shot in the head.
According to a Mexican policemen at the scene said, "The discovery occurred at kilometer four of the boulevard, under the bridge known as El Morro, where they located a 2nd vehicle a green Cadillac with white California, USA plates." The officer went on to say in broken English "At 20 meters' from the car, we found dead another man of dark complexion and a white woman, who apparently are also foreigners". Those bodies have not been identified.
Elements of ministerial personnel and expertise of the Attorney General de Justicia del Estado, working at the crime scene where they collected evidence of multiple homicides.
Last week four Americans were shot and wounded as they were leaving the Arriba Chihuahua nightclub in the ProNaF tourist zone in the violent Mexican border city of Juárez.
Some 200 people have been killed in Tijuana so far this year. In 2007, there were more than 2,500 drug killings across Mexico and just since the beginning of this year more than 3500 people have been murdered in Mexico in what authorities blame on the Mexican cartels and their criminal gangs and Para-military forces. Click on or Google Dangerous Mexican/U.S. Criminal Enterprises Operating Along the Mexican border
It is estimated that Mexico has 36,000 troops fighting the Mexican drug cartels and their Para-military units throughout the country. With the expected injection of more soldiers being sent to the U.S. Mexican border cities those troops will number near 40,000.
Calderon is seeking U.S. military aid under the provisions of the Merida Initiative, a multiyear $1.4 billion anti-narcotics package proposed by President Bush. Click on or Google: Merida Initiative Will It Work?
In recent months and after Mexican president Caldron dispatched the Mexican army and federal police to many interior cities and to Mexican cities on the Mexican U.S. border the level of violence has risen substantially.
As reported earlier this month in the Laguna/El Paso Journal many Americans are wondering when the Bush administration is going to raise the travel alert to its highest level "travel warning," to forewarn American travelers to Mexico? How many American citizens are going to have to be shot, executed or kidnapped before the American government move to prevent needless deaths and issue the proper high alert of "travel warning," for Americans?
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