Recent Violence in Mexico Share This /

• The chief of municipal police of Primo Tapia, José Carlos Ventura Isada, was shot and killed by unknown assailants Sunday, while driving with his wife and children. His wife was injured in the shooting and was transferred to the Mexican Red Cross for care.
• It was reported Thursday that many Mexican media outlets signed an agreement of common drug war reporting guidelines. The agreement promised to protect journalists and not to glorify drug traffickers or publish propaganda from cartels. It also maintained the right to criticize the Mexican government’s actions and policies regarding the drug war and encouraged journalists to report human rights abuses committed by government security forces. Some major newspapers, including Reforma, La Jornada and Proceso did not sign the agreement, which critics say may lead to forms of prior censorship.
• Victor Manuel Felix, a relative of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, the leader of the Sinaloa drug cartel, was one of 18 people arrested in Mexico and Ecuador, Mexican authorities said Wednesday. Felix was a principal money launderer for the cartel, The Los Angeles Times reported, as well as being the father-in-law of Guzman's son and godfather of one of his children. He was captured last Friday with half a ton of cocaine and $500,000. Felix’s arrest has “raised questions about whether authorities might be moving closer to detaining” Guzman, according to the article, who has alluded authorities since escaping from prison in 2001.
• The presumed leader of La Familia Michoacana cartel was captured Tuesday. José Natividad Cortez Balcázar, alias ‘El Teacher’, ‘El Compadre’, ‘El Negro’ or ‘El Richard’, was captured in the state of Guanajuato. The 37-year-old is accused of murder, kidnapping and extortion, among other crimes.
• A book of drawings by children in Michoacan state depicting images from the drug war was released Tuesday by the Michoacan state Human Rights Commission and a local university. The children had all submitted drawings to a competition held last year requesting pictures drawn by children ages 7-12 alluding to Mexico’s 200 years of independence from Spain. The book, called “The Mexico I Live” shows "explicit images of a society devoted to drug trafficking, violence and of abuses against minors," according to professor Araceli Colin, a member of the selection committee.
• The Houston Chronicle reported that the trial of three men accused of the 2009 kidnapping of Sergio Saucedo, a man from El Paso who was found dead in Ciudad Juárez began last Monday. The three men, Omar Obregon-Ortiz, Cesar Obregon-Reyes and Rafael Vega, are accused of kidnapping Saucedo from his home in Horizon City, a suburb of El Paso, on September 3, 2009, in front of his wife and children. He was found in Ciudad Juárez five days later, with his arms severed. If convicted, the men face life in prison.
• Late last Sunday at least eight people were killed in Ciudad Juárez. Two of those killed were 15 years old and two were 20. There is no report of the ages of the other four victims, and while it’s not reported how many attacks there were, not all of the eight victims were killed in the same attack.

This post was written by CIP Intern Erin Shea