Pubdate: Fri, 10 Dec 2010
Source: New York Times (NY)
Page: A8
Copyright: 2010 The New York Times Company
Contact: http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/lettertoeditor.html
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Damien Cave
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/La+Familia
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Michoacan

MEXICAN CITY IS BLOCKADED BY GUNMEN

MEXICO CITY -- Gunmen blockaded President Felipe Calderon's hometown 
on Thursday, forcing drivers from their cars, trucks and buses, then 
setting the vehicles ablaze in the middle of major intersections.

Jonathan Arredondo, a spokesman for the attorney general's office in 
Michoacan State, where the blockade occurred, said the brazen effort 
stopped traffic around 11 a.m. at all five entrances to Mr. 
Calderon's hometown, the colonial city of Morelia, ending only after 
the fires died down.

It appeared to be a show of force by La Familia, a drug gang. Several 
of its leaders have been arrested in recent months, but the criminal 
outfit -- notorious for beheadings, methamphetamine production and 
brash attacks on government forces -- continues to fight for control 
of the area west of Mexico City that it has dominated for years.

Only a day earlier, in a nearby city in Michoacan, a series of 
shootouts between federal police officers and suspected La Familia 
gunmen left three people dead -- an 8-month-old, a 16-year-old girl 
and a federal officer. In a statement, the federal police said that 
in at least one case on Wednesday, gunmen ambushed officers from both 
sides of a road, using automatic rifles known as "goat horns."

It was unclear whether the blockade was connected to the earlier 
violence, or was perhaps meant to rebut recent claims by a detained 
La Familia leader that the cartel was in decline. On Thursday, the 
police said that no arrests had been made so far, and that the 
blockade had left one man injured, with a gunshot wound in the leg.

Mr. Arredondo said the injured man was a 75-year-old diabetic. "The 
criminals were frustrated because he was walking slowly," Mr. 
Arredondo said. "So they shot him."

Morelia has been struck by violence before. In 2008, a grenade attack 
tore through a crowded Independence Day celebration, killing eight 
people and wounding more than 100 others.  
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