Pubdate: Wed, 09 Jun 1999 Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA) Copyright: 1999 Mercury Center Contact: http://www.sjmercury.com/ Author: Ricardo Sandoval RUMORS OF DRUG CONNECTION CIRCULATE OVER COMIC'S SLAYING Cocaine Detected In Stanley's Blood MEXICO CITY -- Police fanned out across Mexico City on Tuesday looking for clues to the slaying Monday of popular comedian Francisco "Paco" Stanley. The streets and the media were abuzz with speculation about motives for the brazen shooting that shocked the country. "Stanley Killed Narco Style!" screamed Mexico City's influential daily newspaper Reforma. The newspaper cited U.S. "DEA and Mexican police" sources as saying the execution-style shooting -- which occurred in broad daylight as Stanley left an upscale restaurant -- was "typical of a narco revenge killing." City Attorney General Samuel del Villar said Tuesday that tests showed traces of cocaine in Stanley's bloodstream. Investigators also found a packet containing half a gram of the drug in his shirt pocket and cocaine traces on a piece of foil paper in the car, the Associated Press reported. Police have ruled out robbery and kidnapping as possible motives. And while the media speculated that drugs might have been involved, authorities denied such reports. U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration sources said Stanley's name is not on the list of high-profile Mexicans suspected of ties to narco-traffickers. Other reports said the 56-year-old Stanley's name appears in old Mexican military intelligence reports as linked to the Juarez drug cartel once led by Amado Carrillo Fuentes. The reports also linked Stanley to imprisoned former Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, arrested two years ago on charges of aiding the Juarez cartel. Stanley was gunned down in a hail of bullets that also killed a bystander and wounded six people. Eyewitnesses said the shooting lasted several minutes. Reports of bald suspect Police said 13 eyewitnesses have provided information about the shooting and authorities are investigating reports that a bald, well-dressed man was seen wielding a gun and leaving the scene. Authorities brought in two men for questioning, but then released them. The presumed getaway car -- a late-model silver VW Jetta -- was found three blocks away, bloodstained. Some police sources speculated that one of the four suspected shooters was either wounded by one of Stanley's bodyguards, or was hit by cross fire. Within hours of the slaying, radio and television news anchors were openly demanding the resignation of city and federal law enforcement officials. Television and music stars joined in the chorus, filling the airwaves with emotional complaints about crime directed at Mexico City Mayor Cuauhtemoc Cardenas and President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon. Rumors also circulated Tuesday that Stanley's killing was connected to his having left the powerful Televisa network three years ago to join the maverick TV Azteca, but there is no evidence to support that assertion. And police said there was nothing to link the slaying to politics, despite Stanley's increasingly hard-edged jokes about ruling-party leaders and the Mexican government in his variety-show monologues. Although Mexican officials deny all these reports, the manner in which the four gunmen calmly singled out Stanley is too much like an organized-crime hit for analysts to dismiss. "It is obvious that this execution was planned by professionals, such as those working for drug dealers," said Guillermo Velasco, president of Mexicans Against Organized Crime, a think tank funded by Mexican business leaders. `Citizens are afraid' "In most cities in the world, people have the confidence to go outside and criminals are afraid of being caught," said Carlos Castillo Peraza, a Mexican journalist and former conservative-party mayoral candidate. "In Mexico City, criminals have no fear of arrest, and citizens are afraid to venture beyond their gates." Awareness of crime since Stanley's death has reached even the young. In a plaza in southern Mexico City, 3-year-old Alonso Moreno asked his parents when the family would "pack our things and leave this city and go to another country." "Today it was Paco. Who will it be tomorrow?" a visibly shaken Ricardo Salinas Pliego, owner of TV Azteca, asked in a message to viewers Tuesday. Salinas was Stanley's employer, and is said to be influential in the conservative wing of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party. "Criminal impunity is squashing us. . . . And where is the law?" Salinas asked. "Where are the authorities? What do we pay taxes for?" - --- MAP posted-by: Patrick Henry