Pubdate: Tue, 29 Feb 2000
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2000 The Washington Post Company
Address: 1150 15th Street Northwest, Washington, DC 20071
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Author: Molly Moore, Washington Post Foreign Service

MEXICANS STUNNED BY MURDER OF POLICE CHIEF

MEXICO CITY, Feb. 28 - The Tijuana police chief's assassination Sunday -
just two days after President Ernesto Zedillo announced new resolve to
fight drug violence in the border region - has stunned Mexican authorities
and renewed complaints about criminal influence in Mexico.

Alfredo de la Torre became the second Tijuana police chief in less than six
years to be gunned down when assailants riddled his black Chevrolet
Suburban with dozens of bullets as he drove along a busy highway.

Zedillo, responding to pressure from local business and political leaders
concerned about one of the highest murder rates in Tijuana history, had
declared less than 48 hours earlier: "We can't stand still with our arms
crossed" while violence and crime continue to escalate in the Tijuana area.

Tijuana sits just south of San Diego, Calif., and most of Mexico's
trafficking is oriented toward smuggling illegal drugs across the border
for distribution in the United States. In addition, the murder came days
before a planned vote in Congress on whether to certify Mexico as a
cooperative partner in fighting drug trafficking.

The certification process touches sensitive national nerves here. Mexican
newspapers were filled with outrage this weekend from politicians and
pundits thrashing the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Jeffrey Davidow, for
saying last week that "the world headquarters of narco-trafficking is in
Mexico" just as the headquarters of the mafia is in Sicily.

Mexico's two largest border cities - Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez, which is
adjacent to El Paso - have experienced spiraling crime rates in the past
decade as the drug cartels headquartered there have become increasingly
powerful and violent. Tijuana is the operations center for the drug mafia
controlled by the Arellano-Felix family, reputedly the most violent of
Mexico's drug trafficking organizations.

Mexican law enforcement officials said today they have not determined a
motive in the shooting of de la Torre. The assassinations of law
enforcement officials in Mexico often become mired in speculation over
whether the official was killed because he was trying to fight crime,
because he was working for rival gangs or for double-crossing a mafia boss.

In the immediate aftermath of his death, city officials and friends praised
de la Torre's honesty. Tijuana human rights activist Victor Clark, who said
he was a friend of de la Torre, said the late police chief was well aware
of the dangers of his office.

Over breakfast on the morning de la Torre received word of his appointment,
Clark recalled his friend saying of the criminal organizations: "First they
send you a briefcase full of money. Then, if you reject it, they send you a
briefcase with a gun." De la Torre, 49, a career law enforcement officer,
worked his way up through the ranks and had been chief for 14 months.

He was attacked on the same highway where police chief Federico Benitez
Lopez was ambushed and assassinated in April 1994. De la Torre was
traveling without bodyguards, as was his custom on the weekend. He had just
ended a cellular telephone call to the mayor's office and was on his way to
his office when his vehicle apparently was surrounded by at least three
vehicles, according to city officials.

The attackers peppered his windshield and windows with dozens of bullets
from automatic weapons, according to Mexican authorities. His vehicle then
smashed into a tree at high speed. Paramedics were unable to revive him,
officials said.

Investigators recovered 102 bullets and 99 shells at the scene of the
shooting, according to a statement today by the Baja California Norte state
attorney general's office, which is conducting the investigation.

Since the beginning of the year, law enforcement authorities have recorded
63 murders in Tijuana, 70 percent of which they believe are related to
criminal organizations, according to a spokesman for the city police
department. Tijuana has a population of about 1.5 million. Officials said
this year's murder rate is one of the highest recorded. Last year 323
homicides were reported in the city.

Rodolfo Gallardo Hernandez, a lawyer, former judge and one-time candidate
for mayor of Tijuana, was gunned down this month outside his home, along
with his wife and son. In January, gunmen burst into a seafood restaurant
on a busy Friday night and murdered three diners in a spray of gunfire.

"We have to make these criminals understand that Baja California is not
their home, that the only place they deserve is prison," Zedillo said
Friday in Mexicali, the Baja California Norte state capital that sits just
south of the U.S. border and 100 miles east of Tijuana.

Clark, echoing concerns voiced across Mexico today, said: "It is a
challenge by these people that they murder a police chief just hours after
the president has left the state. They are not afraid. In the '80s the
police had control of the delinquents. Now the delinquents control the
police."
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