Inching up

The daily average for killings is slowly increasing. With 27 added yesterday for a yearly total of 2,681 narco-related deaths the daily average is close to 29 per day. This includes an ambush on a patrol car that left 2 police officers dead and 2 missing (one of whom is a commander) in San Fernando, Tamaulipas. As is far to usual, I expect the bodies of these too missing officers to show up in the next few days with signs of torture and executed.

As well in Tamaulipas, a military garrison in Tampico was attacked by cartel members using hand grenades, fortunately there was no dead nor injured. Six people were executed in the vacation spot of Mazatlán and another 5 in Sonora as they were travelling in a car while 5 more people were killed in Ciudad Juárez.

The governor of Tamaulipas, Eugenio Hernández Flores is requesting assistance from  the federal government with respect to safe-guarding the state prisons after the 2 recent jailbreaks that saw 41 prisoners escape on March 25th in Matamoros and another 13 escape on April 3rd from the prison in Reynosa. Hernández admits that the state lacks the resources to ensure adequate prisons. The April 3rd escape involved an half hour firefight between cartel members and the prison guards, with 8 of the guards now under investigation for assisting the escape of the 13 prisoners. Another 42 prison guards, including 8 women, are under investigation for the March 25th escape in Matamoros.

Meanwhile, in Monterrey, Nuevo León, 105 police officers were fired for failing drug-tests, polygraphs, human rights violations and providing information to the drug cartels. Another 92 police officers are still under investigation and may be fired as well.