1 dead in Mexico shootout on border with El Paso

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100822/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_drug_war_mexico

1 dead in Mexico shootout on border with El Paso

By OLIVIA TORRES and ALICIA A. CALDWELL, Associated Press Writer Olivia

And A. Caldwell, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 52 mins ago

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico – A gunbattle erupted between Mexican police and gunmen

near the Rio Grande on Saturday, killing one person and prompting U.S.

authorities to close a highway that runs along the border in El Paso, Texas.

There were no reports of bullets crossing into the U.S. side, El Paso police

Detective Mike Baranyay said.

The gunmen attacked a municipal police patrol on a boulevard in Ciudad Juarez

next to the border river, said Ramon Salinas, a spokesman for Mexico's federal

police.

The fighting escalated when federal police rushed to help, he said. One gunman

was killed and three municipal police officers were wounded.

El Paso police closed that city's border highway for about 30 minutes because of

the shooting. City police said the U.S. Border Patrol asked for the shutdown.

Doug Mosier, a spokesman for the Border Patrol, said Paisano Street was closed

" in the interest of public safety. " He said that to his knowledge, it was the

first time a street in El Paso has been shut down because of a shooting in

Mexico.

Traffic was halted on a stretch running from downtown El Paso to the city's

northwest, passing the University of Texas-El Paso, which overlooks the border.

The fighting occurred in the same area where a deadly shootout between gunmen

and Mexican police sent seven bullets across the border and into the El Paso

City Hall on June 29.

Ciudad Juarez has become one of the deadliest cities in the world amid a

territorial war between the Juarez and Sinaloa drug cartels. More than 1,860

people have been killed this year in the city of 1.3 million people.

Despite concerns of spillover violence, El Paso remains one of the safest cities

in the United States. The city has recorded just three homicides so far this

year.

Still, the violence has at times raised tensions between the U.S. and Mexico.

After the bullets hit El Paso City Hall, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott

wrote President Barack Obama to warn that the state " is under constant assault

from illegal activity threatening a porous border. "

That same month, a 15-year-old Mexican boy was fatally shot by a U.S. Border

Patrol agent who was trying to arrest illegal immigrants crossing the Rio

Grande. Some witnesses said a group of people on the Mexican side threw rocks at

the agents.

Obama ordered thousands of National Guard troops to the border.

Elsewhere in Mexico on Saturday, authorities said the bodies of two security

guards for Mexican bottling company FEMSA were found dead a day after a shootout

in Santa Catalina, a suburb of the northeastern industrial city of Monterrey.

FEMSA said in a statement that four other guards who disappeared after Friday's

shooting were located unharmed.

Police says the two slain guards were found Saturday in the trunk of a car.

Three other guards were wounded Friday.

The company said the guards were on standard patrols when gunmen attacked

outside a school. Police have not determined a motive, but the region is one of

Mexico's most violent cartel battlegrounds.

___

Associated Press writers Olivia reported this story from Ciudad Juarez

and A. Caldwell reported from El Paso, Texas.

[Guest guest]

So, they had to close down a highway for a time in the US. Big deal. Parts of national parks are off limits even to park rangers because of the danger posed by drug gangs and farmers and ranchers can't even go outside at night because of the threat from illegals on their land.