Gunmen dump 35 bodies on busy street in Mexico

General view of the scene where 35 bodies were found at the Adolfo Ruiz Cortinez Blvd in Boca del Rio municipality, Veracruz State, Mexico, on September 20, 2011. More than 40,000 people have been killed in rising drug-related violence in Mexico since December 2006, when President Felipe Calderon deployed soldiers and federal police to take on organized crime. / Getty Images

MEXICO CITY - Masked gunmen blocked traffic on a busy avenue in a Gulf of Mexico coastal city Tuesday and dumped the bodies of 35 slaying victims as horrified motorists watched, authorities said.

Veracruz state Attorney General Reynaldo Escobar Perez said the bodies were left piled in two trucks and on the ground of an underpass near a shopping mall in the city of Boca del Rio.

Police had identified seven of the victims so far and all had criminal records for murder, drug dealing, kidnapping and extortion and were linked to organized crime, Escobar said. He didn't say to what group the victims belonged to.

The Zetas drug cartel has been locked in a bloody war with drug gangs for control of Veracruz, a state along an important route for drugs and Central American migrants heading north.

Motorists first began tweeting Tuesday afternoon that masked gunmen in military uniforms were blocking Manuel Avila Camacho Boulevard in Boca del Rio's downtown and pointing their guns at civilians.

"They don't seem to be soldiers or police," a tweet read. Another said, "Don't go through that area, there is danger."

Escobar said police were reviewing surveillance video recorded in the area.

Video: Mexican Pres. Calderon on drug war, immigration
Social media users killed, threatened in Mexico
2 Mexicans face 30 years in jail for tweeting

Local media said that 12 of the victims were women and that some of the dead men had been among prisoners who escaped from three Veracruz prisons on Monday, but Escobar said he couldn't confirm that.

At least 32 inmates got away from the three Veracruz prisons. Police recaptured 14 of them.

Earlier Tuesday, the Mexican army announced it had captured a key figure in the cult-like Knights Templar drug cartel that is sowing violence in western Mexico.

Saul Solis Solis, 49, a former police chief and one-time congressional candidate, was captured without incident Monday in the cartel's home state of Michoacan, Brig. Gen. Edgar Luis Villegas said during a presentation of Solis to the media.

Solis is considered one of the principal lieutenants in the Knights Templar, which split late last year from La Familia, a pseudo-religious drug gang known as a major trafficker of methamphetamine.

He is accused in various attacks on the military and federal police, including one in May 2007 that killed an officer and four soldiers, Villegas said. Solis also is suspected of planting and harvesting drugs, managing clandestine labs manufacturing synthetic drugs and ordering attacks on police facilities in cities around the entire state.

Mexico's attorney general had offered a $1.1 million reward for information leading to his capture.

Solis is a cousin of one of the Knights Templar's main alleged leaders, Enrique Plancarte Solis. Saul Solis served as director of public safety in the Michoacan town of Turicato in 2003-05 and ran for the federal congress in 2009 as a Green Party candidate, finishing fourth in his district with about 11,000 votes.

Family members of people allegedly killed by drug gang related violence embrace during the "Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity" led by Javier Sicilia in Oventic, in Mexico's Chiapas state, Friday, Sept. 16, 2011. The son of Javier Sicilia, the leader of the caravan, was killed by gunmen allegedly belonging to a drug gang. Sicilia organized the peace caravan through cities and states affected by drug-related violence in southern Mexico.

/ AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo

Authorities said a judge had issued an arrest warrant for Solis on charges of organized crime and drug trafficking at the time of the vote.

President Felipe Calderon launched an offensive against organized crime in 2006 in his home state of Michoacan, where much of the violence had been attributed to La Familia. Knights Templar became a splinter group after the leader of La Familia, Nazario Moreno Gonzalez, was killed in a shootout with federal police last December.

A second La Familia leader, Jose de Jesus Mendez Vargas, was arrested in June, leading Calderon's government to say it had all but dismantled the gang. But violence continues in Michoacan and other parts of western Mexico where Knights Templar is trying to control territory.

Both groups claim to be devoted to God and to be fighting poverty and injustice under a strict code of conduct.

Late Monday, four gunmen died in a clash between drug cartels in the Michoacan towns of Caracuaro and Tiquicheo, the army said in a statement. It said residents told authorities several vehicles packed with gunmen had been seen in the area earlier Monday.

Drug violence has claimed more than 35,000 lives across Mexico since 2006, according to government figures. Others put the number at more than 40,000.

In northern Mexico, the army announced the detention of two more suspects in a casino fire that killed 52 people last month in the northern city of Monterrey.

The two men captured at a bar in Monterrey late Monday confessed to being members of the Zetas drug cartel and participating in the attack, federal prosecutors said.

Six others, including a Nuevo Leon state police officer, previously were arrested in the case and 16 more suspects remain at large.

Last week, the parents and a brother of a police officer involved in the casino investigation were shot to death at their Monterrey home. Authorities said the attack could have been revenge because the officer helped identify some of the alleged attackers.

Separately in Nuevo Leon, Mexican marines captured 19 alleged members of the Zetas drug cartel at a ranch that was being used as a training camp in the town of Colombia, the military announced.

A navy statement said that seven minors were among those detained and that marines seized four rifles, a pistol, and several military uniforms and boots.

[vpcharan]

I thought only Rick Perry would do something like this. I am sad.

[bajajohn1]

By far, identification of the dead reveals the vast majority of the dead were criminals themselves.

[DenverBroncofan]

by expatriate2 September 21, 2011 4:37 PM EDT
I am sure that the parents, wives, sisters, brothers, children of these victims are pleased that you had to spout your ignorance.

=============================================================

Your'e assuming they can read let alone use the web

[bajajohn1]

Bronco, kids in Mexico probably know more about computers than you will ever learn. They start them young. Did you learn racism at home?

[expatriate2]

Forgive him, bajajohn, he had to go out for his weekly meeting. He almost forgot to take the hood with him.

[hairynews]

If the US and Mexico wanted to stop this stuff all they have to do is make pot legal for say 1 year and see if it works to really, really hurt the cartels. Just 1 year, no harm no foul. It would save at least some lives, right? 1 year, tax it at the border. The tax alone would build a new border facility to check in pot only, in a month! Use the tax money to stop hard drugs, meth, coke whatever.They have not put a dent in stopping it. In fact they made criminals richer and richer year in year out. If they make a huge bust it drives the price up for a short time and increases the profits even MORE! It is a plant that the US military used to buy to make ropes. Old man Kennedy used to run booze. Moonshine is still here. I drank it when I was stationed at Ft. Benning Georgia. Any time you try and stop what the MAJORITY want, it does not work. Most places now give you a citation like a parking ticket if you are caught with a couple of joints. Ask ANY high school kid in America if he/she could find a joint in 24 hours for say a hundred dollar bet. If that kid can find a joint, how does that not make the war on pot for the last 40 years not an utter JOKE!

[hairynews]

I would also like to say I offer my condolences to the families of these murdered people.

[lindat]

The comments on this story are as frightening as the original story.

[bajajohn1]

Instead of voicing jingoistic opinions, look up the FBI crime statistics for the nation.

[bajajohn1]

Don not let the facts or the effects of the drug selling and drug consumption scare you. Such is life these days.

[DenverBroncofan]

by retm-w September 21, 2011 3:45 PM EDT
Americans like to spend their money supporting foreign countries, then complain there are no jobs here.

================================================================

So everything you own is American? Car, watch, microwave, TV, computer, cell phone etc.?

[DenverBroncofan]

There is a happy side...35 fewer illegals on US soil

[expatriate2]

I am sure that the parents, wives, sisters, brothers, children of these victims are pleased that you had to spout your ignorance.

[UForgotPoland]

The sad thing is that Americans will keep going to this warzone just to get a cheap vacation with cheap booze.

[retm-w]

Americans like to spend their money supporting foreign countries, then complain there are no jobs here.

[bajajohn1]

Frankly, the murder rate in the U.S. is way much higher than Mexico's, considering the government offensive against the drug cartels. Mexico has a population of approximately 112 million people. If 35, 000 people have died in 4 years, the number of dead equals to .00031245 of 1% the population; if 40,000 have been killed, the percentage of the population is .000357142 of 1%. To put matters in perspective, most of the dead have been cartel members against cartel members, as the present report correctly addresses. Now, to clear matters up about the dangerousness of living in Mexico, answer this question: How many people are murdered yearly in the U.S.? Some time ago, it was 43,000 yearly homicides.

[UForgotPoland]

In the US murder is usually committed due to a personal issue between parties, in Mexico it is like war with random and mass violence against the public. What would you rather have?

[retm-w]

bugwhips

Source?