Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Mexico army: Suspect says ICE agent slain in error ?

Of course, these "Partners" in the war on truth are to be trusted implicitly.

Good excuse for another all expenses "Fact Finding" and BagMan op to Cancun, or Islas. .......Cold in D.C. today anyhoo.

John Morton is a dangerous idiot, supremely unqualified for the position he holds.

We'll not discuss his boss.

GTC

Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/23/AR2011022303931.html

By E. EDUARDO CASTILLO
The Associated Press
Thursday, February 24, 2011; 2:01 AM

MEXICO CITY -- Mexican soldiers have arrested an alleged Zetas drug cartel member who allegedly confessed to killing a U.S. immigration agent, but said the attack was a case of mistaken identity.

Suspect Julian Zapata Espinoza - known by the nickname "El Piolin," or Tweety Bird, apparently because of his short stature - told soldiers that a group of gunmen from the Zetas mistook the officer's vehicle for one used by a rival gang.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jaime Zapata was shot to death and fellow agent Victor Avila was wounded while driving on a highway near the northern city of San Luis Potosi on Feb. 15.

"That event occurred because of the characteristics of the vehicle, given that they (the suspects) thought it was being used by members of a rival criminal group," an army spokesman, Col. Ricardo Trevilla, said.

The two agents were in a Chevrolet Suburban. Mexico's drug cartels frequently set up roadblocks and ambushes to steal large SUVs and pickups, vehicles they like to use.

President Barack Obama and other top U.S. officials offered congratulations for the arrests a week after the killing.

The Associated Press learned that Zapata Espinoza had been arrested in 2009, apparently on illegal weapons charges, but jumped bail and disappeared until soldiers caught him and five other suspects in raids Wednesday on four Zetas safehouses in San Luis Potosi.
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Photos from that year show Zapata Espinosa and other suspects under army custody, with the weapons and ammunition they were allegedly caught with.

Zapata and Avila, who worked at the U.S. Embassy, were attacked as they returned to Mexico City from a meeting with other U.S. personnel in the state of San Luis Potosi. Avila was shot twice in the leg and is recovering in the United States.

Some reports at the time said the two were stopped at a roadblock, while others said they were run off the road by other vehicles. The Mexican government does not authorize U.S. law enforcement personnel to carry weapons.

Last week, some U.S. officials maintained the attack was an intentional ambush of the agents and said the gunmen made comments before they fired indicating they knew who their targets were.

It would not be the first time that a politically sensitive killing in Mexico was identified as a case of mistaken identity.

In 1993, gunmen linked to the Arellano Felix drug cartel killed Roman Catholic Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo at an airport in the western city of Guadalajara. Prosecutors later said the gunmen mistook the cardinal's luxury car for their intended target, drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo Guzman."

Several other recent high-profile cartel killings of people not involved in the drug trade, including the September killing of American tourist David Hartley, have been ascribed by law enforcement officials to cases of mistaken identity.

Though Mexico is seeing record rates of violence, it is rare for U.S. officials to be attacked. The U.S. government, however, has become increasingly concerned about the safety of its employees in the country.

In March, a U.S. employee of the American consulate in Ciudad Juarez, her husband and a Mexican tied to the consulate were killed when drug gang members fired on their cars after they left a children's party in the city across from El Paso, Texas.

Trevilla, the army spokesman, said military intelligence officers had identified Zapata Espinoza as the head of a cell of Zetas gang members in San Luis Potosi since early December, when raids in the area turned up other alleged gang members. Trevilla said Zapata Espinoza headed the Zetas' operations in the area, but did not specify what they were.

Zapata Espinoza and the five others, including a Honduran citizen, arrested Wednesday were presented to journalists Wednesday night. The army quoted Zapata Espinoza as saying two of the five had participated in the attack on the ICE agents, but did not specify which of the five.
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One of the men had a swollen, bruised face. Soldiers found three women and one child and five rifles at the four houses raided, authorities said.

San Luis Potosi is at the center of a power struggle between two rival drug gangs, the Zetas and the Gulf cartel. It is also on the route north used by migrants seeking to reach the United States, and officials say cartels have begun recruiting some migrants to work for the gangs.

The White House said in a statement that the U.S. president Obama spoke with Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Wednesday and "thanked him for Mexican efforts to bring to justice the murderers."

"The president said neither the United States nor Mexico could tolerate violence against those who serve and protect our citizens, as Special Agent Zapata did so selflessly through his own life," according to the statement.

The arrest came as Calderon announced a visit to Washington to meet with Obama next week.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano also welcomed the arrest. She said the United States "will continue to assist the ongoing Mexican investigation with every resource at our disposal and to ensure that all those responsible for Special Agent Zapata's murder face justice."

"We will also continue our vigorous and coordinated efforts to defeat the criminal organizations operating in Mexico that seek to exploit our shared border," she added in a statement.

ICE Director John Morton said in a statement that "we are encouraged by this action and appreciate the efforts by Mexico to bring Special Agent Zapata's killers to justice."

In error? I didn't know the could stack it that high.

wow, my heart goes out to the poor Zetas that made such a terrible mistake. I hope things go well for them, since they really did not WANT to kill that guy.

Nice built in "Charlie Foxtrot" in the "Coincidence" of both the killer and killee having the same names.

That's going to make interpreting this that much murkier.

My call ? The "Mexican Army" and the Zetas are part of one and the same organism,.....and have the art of playing the D.C. bunch down to a fine art.

Salinas Gortari taught em' well.

GTC

Maybe it IS time for the US to invade Mexico, as suggested by some members of the forum. We'd accomplish 2 goals: 1) end (hopefully) the violence and, 2) eliminate illegal immigration.

As to the first, the 500,000 US troops could occupy Mexico and control the violence (of course, we'll need to increase the Army's strength by reinstating the draft and increasing the Federal budget).

As to the second, since we'll occupy Mexico, they'll be a territory or protectorate and folks can then move freely between their current homes and new homes in California, Arizona, Texas and other states.

better yet, just send in kill teams, and take out the Zetas and their Cartel pals.

No US boots on ground long term. Do as much of the work as possible with air assets.

Then control the mexican border as seriously as the USSR did theirs.

Before hunter jumps in and say's this has been happening for 40 yrs and at the risk of boring people by repeating myself...

The events of pulling up to a roadblock, being pulled over by Policia or Cartel, Plays itself out daily on Mexico highways if you drive any distance at all.It's not whether it'll happen but when and how many times in a trip. You act no different if it's a marked official vehicle or an unmarked Cartel SUV with hidden lights in the grill.

One year ago, the historical safety of those encounters caused little concern. One year later... well, just like those agents, a common daily event could mean your death.

Kent

US sends FBI to probe consular slayings in Mexico
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AFP) � Faced with a brazen challenge from drug cartels, US FBI agents have joined a Mexican investigation into attacks on US consular staff and their families that left three dead in this border city, officials said Monday.

Mexican authorities blamed the drive-by murders of an American employee of the US consulate, her husband and the husband of a Mexican consular employee on "the Aztecas," a gang linked to the powerful Juarez drug cartel.

But investigators said it was still unclear why they were singled out in the attacks by hit teams, who ambushed the two family groups at different locations Saturday after they left the same social event in Ciudad Juarez.

"It could be a mistaken identity, it could be that they were targeted, we don't know at this point," said special agent Andrea Simmons, a spokesperson for the FBI's El Paso office, just across the border from Ciudad Juarez.

She said seven or eight agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation had joined the investigation along with agents from the US Drug Enforcement Agency and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

An official with the Chihuahua state prosecutors office also confirmed that "various FBI agents are in Ciudad Juarez to help in the investigation."

The victims were identified as Lesley Enriquez, an American working at the Juarez consulate; her American husband, Redelfs Haycock; and Jorge Alberto Sarcido, the Mexican husband of another consular employee.

Enriquez and her husband were killed in a hail of bullets as they were driving through Ciudad Juarez with their infant daughter in the back seat, a US official said. The baby survived unharmed.

In a separate attack, gunmen opened fire on Sarcido's car, killing him and wounding his two children. His wife, a Mexican employee of the consulate, was following in a second car and escaped injury, the official said.

US President Barack Obama said he was "deeply saddened and outraged" by the killings, which marked an ominous turn in an already bloody war waged by drug cartels on rivals and the authorities.

More than 2,600 people were murdered in Ciudad Juarez in 2009 in drug-related violence as the cartels battle for control over the lucrative smuggling routes into the United States.

More than 15,000 have died across Mexico over the last three years in an escalating and often shockingly brutal drug war, according to government figures.

President Felipe Calderon was traveling Tuesday to the troubled northern city for the third time in two months to speak with business and civil society leaders.

"We don't have any indication that these individuals (who were slain) were specifically targeted," a US administration source told AFP in Washington.

"We'll be working closely with Mexican government and our resources will be at their disposal."

Although the motive of the latest killings was unknown, several prominent drug kingpins have been recently extradited by Mexico to the United States to stand trial.

Jesus Vicente Zambada-Niebla, son of Sinaloa Cartel chief Ismael "el Mayo" Zambada-Garcia, appeared last month in a Chicago court on drug trafficking charges.

Miguel Caro Quintero, a brother of another notorious Mexican drug baron, Rafael Caro Quintero, was sentenced in a Colorado court to 17 years in jail.

The US Congress has approved some 1.3 billion dollars for Mexico under a regional plan to fight organized crime.

The US State Department authorized US staff in six consulates along the US-Mexican border to send their dependants home for safety.

It also warned US citizens to "delay unnecessary travel" to parts of Durango, Coahuila and Chihuahua states, arguing that "violence in the country has increased."

The State Department noted that some of the recent clashes resembled small-scale warfare, with drug cartels using automatic weapons and grenades.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton offered her "deepest sympathies" to the families of those slain.

"These appalling assaults on members of our own State Department family are, sadly, part of a growing tragedy besetting many communities in Mexico," she said in a statement.

This past weekend, the drug war claimed 31 more victims in several shootings that occurred in and around the famous Mexican resort of Acapulco.

About 1,000 college-age US youngsters are reported to be in Acapulco this week for the traditional US spring break.
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EDINBURG � While Mexican officials have put the search for McAllen man David Michael Hartley on hold indefinitely, a local man believes he has many of the answers to the mystery of the disappearance.

Hartley, 30, is widely presumed dead after what his wife, Tiffany Young-Hartley, has described as an attack by cartel "pirates" on the Mexican side of Falcon Reservoir, which spans that country�s border with the United States.

She has said three boats of gunmen opened fire on them, fatally shooting her husband in the head, as the couple rode separate personal watercraft during a sightseeing trip to a partially submerged church in the abandoned Mexican town of Old Guerrero.

STRATFOR, an Austin-based think tank that focuses on the drug war and other global security issues, reported Wednesday that the Sept. 30 incident may have been a case of mistaken identity by the Zetas drug trafficking organization.

On Saturday, prominent Edinburg private detective Raul G. Reyna Jr. told The Monitor that the theory put forward earlier in the week by a STRATFOR analyst � that the attack on the Hartleys may have been a matter of mistaken identity � is more complicated than what really happened.

Reyna, owner and lead investigator for GOTCHA! Investigations, an Edinburg-based agency that has gone into Mexico to seek out and bring numerous criminal suspects back to the United States, has been looking into the Hartley case on his own.

Reyna believes, after talking to his "network of intelligence sources in Mexico," that the lowest ranking members of the Zeta drug cartel were responsible for the shooting. The "Zetitas," or baby Zetas, shot at the couple to try to steal the personal watercraft they were riding, he said.

"The kid that shot (at the couple) did not know how to handle the weapon," he said. "Because of the recoil (and power of the weapon) one of the shots got away from him and he shot Hartley."

Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez said Saturday that he believes some of Reyna�s claims are possibly true, but added that Reyna needs to be careful about nosing around too much in this case "because he�s going to come up missing a head."

Gonzalez pointed out that Reyna�s state-issued private investigator�s license is expired, a fact confirmed by Reyna who said he has been awaiting its renewal since applying for it on Oct. 8.

"Yes, it was a baby Zeta," Gonzalez said. "Some of them are 15, 16 and 17 years old that operate that area."

The private investigator also claims the name of the shooter was Guadalupe Gomez, also known as "El Piojo," Gomez was killed in Matamoros on Friday, Reyna said.

Mexican investigators in Nuevo Laredo who are dealing with the case were unable to comment Saturday evening. They also could not verify if Guadalupe Gomez was dead or alive.

Gonzalez said he was also unsure if there was any validity behind the investigator�s claim of who the shooter was.

Gonzalez added that he does not believe that theft of the Hartleys� personal watercraft was actually the motive in the shooting. However, he does believe the group of young men shot at the Hartleys as a scare tactic, which was used in several other incidents on the Mexican side of the lake earlier this year.

"After reviewing the other cases," he said, "the same (scare tactics) were used in the other cases."

Another claim Reyna makes, which coincides closely with the theory put forward by STRATFOR, is that the "Zetitas" were not ordered to kill Hartley by Zeta leaders.

"They did all this without the consent or knowledge of the main Zeta group," Reyna said.

Sheriff Gonzalez agreed. The sheriff�s investigators are continuing to work on the case regardless of whether Mexican officials are searching for the body, which he believes will not turn up.

"We have also scaled down," he said. "If we know there�s no body to be found, why should we risk more people searching? Why should we risk having people out there searching and getting beheaded when we can�t find a body? The next step (for U.S. officials) is to continue to develop as much info as we can to pass along to the Mexican officials."

As the investigation began, following the Sept. 30 incident, Tiffany Young-Hartley was asked to give a statement to Mexican officials. However, after many invitations from Mexican officials, Young-Hartley refused to cross the border. However, Gonzalez said Saturday that Young-Hartley went to the Mexican consulate�s office in McAllen again on Friday to file a second statement.

"The (district attorney) in Matamoros wanted her to go his office and (the district attorney) in Miguel Aleman wanted her to go to his office (to give a statement)," he said. "She already gave one. They wanted to get another. So she did it here (in the United States)."

Lindsay Machak covers law enforcement and general assignments for
The Monitor. You can reach her at (956) 683-4462.

well scheit, if the FEEBS are boots on ground, el problema es tan bueno como solucionado

Hell, Pat, anybody can make a "mistake",....right ?

GTC

MEXICO CITY (AP) - The search for an American tourist from Colorado who reportedly was shot and killed by Mexican pirates on a border lake was suspended on Thursday and a U.S. consulate official said he may have been the victim of mistaken identity.
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"I think what you had is two innocent American tourists who mistakenly stumbled into a bad area and were pursued and the shooting occurred," said Brian Quigley, spokesman for the U.S. consulate in Matamoros, across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas.

Quigley was responding to a report by Stratfor, an Austin, Texas-based public policy research group that analyzes the Mexican drug war. The report suggests that David and Tiffany Hartley of McAllen, Texas, may have been mistaken for drug runners and attacked.

Mexico suspended its search for David Hartley indefinitely on Thursday, an official said. Hartley is from Milliken, Colo.

"There is a recess," Ruben Dario Rios Lopez, a spokesman for the state attorney general's office in Tamaulipas, told The Monitor of McAllen in a copyright story in its online edition Thursday. "We are going to look into new strategies between both U.S. and Mexican authorities in order to see what we can do, because up to now we have not been able to recover the body of this person."

Calls by The Associated Press to Rios' office in the Tamaulipas capital, Ciudad Victoria, were not answered Thursday night. An officer who answered the phone at the Tamaulipas state police office in Ciudad Miguel Aleman, near the lake, said he was not allowed to comment. Calls and messages left Thursday night with Texas Gov. Rick Perry's staff were not returned.

Tiffany Hartley says that on Sept. 30, she and her husband, David, were returning to the United States from Mexico where they went to photograph a historic, half-submerged church.

They were crossing Falcon Lake on Jet Skis when pirates who patrol the Mexican half of the lake opened fire, shooting David in the back of the head. Tiffany Hartley says she barely escaped with her life after vain attempts to save her husband while men on three speedboats pursued them, firing their guns.

Texas officials have warned boaters to stay away from the Mexican side of the lake after several fishermen were robbed earlier this year. Hartley's death was the first violent attack on the lake, which was created by damming a section of the Rio Grande.

The Stratfor report says the Hartleys' truck holding the Jet Skis had Tamaulipas, Mexico, license plates, which may have led pirates or drug gangsters to think they were from a rival gang and were spying on them.

The Hartleys lived in Reynosa, Mexico, a city across the border from McAllen, until recently, when David Hartley's employer, an oil and gas company, decided it was too dangerous for them to live in Mexico.

Tamaulipas state is the center of a violent rivalry between the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas, a brutal drug gang made up of former Mexican special-forces soldiers. The search for Hartley's body has been repeatedly hampered by threats of an ambush from drug gangs, presumably the Zetas.

This week, a state police commander in Tamaulipas, Rolando Flores, who was investigating the Hartley disappearance, was killed, his decapitated head delivered in a suitcase to a local Mexican army post.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton condemned the investigator's killing Thursday, calling it an example of "the absolute barbarity" displayed by terrorists and criminals around the world.

Clinton, traveling in Europe, told ABC's "Good Morning America" that the U.S. government is doing everything possible to help the Hartley family.

"The beheaded body of the brave Mexican investigator that just showed up shows what we're dealing with," Clinton said.

Mexican authorities say they don't know if Flores' death was related to the Hartley case because he was working on numerous investigations involving drug gangs. The killings of police officials have become common in Mexico.

Quigley said there is "a possibility" that there is a connection.

Although no sign of Hartley or his Jet Ski have been found after more than a week of searching the lake, Quigley and local officials in Texas say they still believe Tiffany Hartley's story. The Stratfor report theorized that once the killers realized Hartley was an American, they destroyed the body to avoid a U.S. backlash.

"We have absolutely no reason whatsoever to doubt anything Mrs. Hartley has told us," Quigley said.

A search for a Mexican citizen would have been called off after three days, said Bolivar Hernandez, a mid-level official with the Tamaulipas Attorney General's Office, told The Monitor. Still, word of the suspension surprised Hartley's family.

"If that's true, that upsets me, to know what maybe the cartel's getting their way," said Pam Hartley, David's Hartley's mother.
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Seems to be the theme.

Recall, The Democratic Republic of Germany shot folks trying to LEAVE. How many American citizens do you think the Border Patrol will have to shoot as they cross from the US into Mexico, before Americans decide to stay in the US?

It always cost us the "USA" money. I'm liking the idea of sending in US Special forces as hit teams. Bet those guys could get more done with less cost.

Update: Complete with more dumb chit from Morton about "Our Partners" in Mexico.

Some interesting VIDEO HERE, in this......

Link: http://www.valleycentral.com/news/story.aspx?id=584827

Zetas leader, 10 others jailed for ICE agent's death

A Zetas leader and 10 others are behind bars for the death of U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Jaime Zapata.

In a Wednesday evening press conference, the Mexican army said they arrested this man Julian Zapata Espinoza also known as "Piolin".

According to Mexican officials, he's a known leader of the Zetas in the State of San Luis Potos� and has an extensive criminal record.

Along with Zapata-Espinoza authorities also arrested five other men, three women and a minor for their participation in the shooting.

The other suspects were identified as:

� Armando �lvarez Salda�a
� Mario Dom�nguez Realeo
� Domingo D�az Rosas
� Jes�s Iv�n Quezada Pe�a (aka El Loco)
� Martin B�rcenas Tapia
� Rub�n Dar�o Venegas (aka El Catracho)
� Diana Margarita Guerrero Morales
� Roxana Mireya R�os Vel�zquez
� Magali Cha�n Castillo L�pez (Zapata-Espinoza's wife)
� Minor's Name Not Released

According to Mexican officials Zapata-Espinoza confessed to the shooting along with two of the other suspects who were by his side during the attack on the agents.

The Zeta leader allegedly admitted he confused the agent�s vehicle with that of a rival gangs.

Little details are known as to what roles the other suspects played.

Authorities said they first learned about Espinoza-Zapata's ties to the Zetas Drug Cartel following the arrests of eight other Zetas members back in December.

Reaction To The Arrests

A friend of Jaime Zapata�s told Action 4 News the family was notified about the arrest shortly after the funeral on Tuesday.

He said the arrest is comforting because authorities are progressing in the case.

But not everyone is convinced about the arrests.

�I don�t know what is the truth and what is not the truth as far as they're concerned,� said Robert Rodriguez a Brownsville resident. �Maybe they just picked a guy from somewhere and he�s the one that did it and really it�s not."

Robert Rodriguez knows tragedy all too well, he lost his son while he was fighting in Iraq, he said any information coming from M�xico is questionable.

�My trust is not on the people from over there.�

Mexican authorities said these arrest show their unrelenting efforts to bring down the violence in their country and will continue to work with the U.S. Government to bring them to justice.

President Barak Obama released a statement thanking Mexico�s president for capturing suspects in the case.

Even telling the Mexican President neither the United States nor M�xico could tolerate violence against those who protect and serve the citizens.

Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano said the U.S. Government would not "relent" in its mission to bring the attackers to justice.

U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director John Morton also released a statement Wednesday afternoon saying that the arrest is an encouraging and welcome development.

"It is important to remember that this is an ongoing investigation, and we will continue to work closely with our law enforcement partners in Mexico and in the United States as it unfolds," Morton said. "We continue to hold the Zapata family in our thoughts and prayers, and look forward to a swift resolution of this case."

Mexican President Felipe Calderon is expected to pay a visit to the White House next week.

Here's a rather mind boggling (for those unfamiliar with contortions of mis-information in Mexican "Communications")



"TONY JONES" ???


Looks like a propaganda play,....but WTF KNOWS ?

GTC

El Heraldo de Chihuahua (Mexico) 2/23/2011

One of the alleged murderers of ICE Agent caught in Mexico

(Mexico City) Mexican military and Federal Police have made an arrest in the shooting death of U.S. ICE Agent Jaime Zapata, and the shooting of his partner, Victor Avila. The Secretary of Defense (SEDENA) has given limited information at this time. The arrest of Tony Jones of U.S. origin occurred in the town of Charcas, San Luis, Potosi. More information is expected on his involvement and other arrests.

http://www.oem.com.mx/elheraldodechihuahua/notas/n1978148.htm
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Another in English: Slay Suspect Is Named in Mexico (Wall St Journal)
http://tinyurl.com/4ud37te
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