Inside Mexico's Drug War

Abstract

AGUASCALIENTES, Mexico?Just before noon on February 15, 2007, four municipal police officers in Aguascalientes, the pictur esque capital of the central Mexican state bearing the same name, were called to a mundane road accident. An overturned, black Chevy Suburban with out-of-state license plates was blocking traffic on the quiet Boulevard John Paul II that runs through the city's sleepy western suburbs. When local police commander Juan Jos? Navarro Rincon and his three colleagues ar rived, they saw two men who did not appear to be hurt, removing AK-47 assault rifles and police uniforms from the crashed vehi cle to a white Nissan sport utility vehicle (suv) parked nearby. Navarro Rincon called for reinforcements. He was about to arrest the pair when two other cars came to an abrupt stop just up the road. Three gunmen climbed out and opened fire with automatic weapons. Navarro Rincon was killed in stantly. Three other officers also died. The killings, dubbed Black Thursday by the local press, were the first shootings of police officers in by drug gangs. Until then, had been a quiet place, immune to the violence that was raging in cities along the U.S.-Mexico border and elsewhere in the country. The firefight sparked a manhunt throughout the state's rocky plateaus, involving some five dozen federal police patrol cars and a mili tary helicopter. Later that day, with the gunmen and the drivers of the escape vehi cles captured and in police custody, Aguas calientes State Attorney Xavier Gonzalez Fisher tried to reassure the rattled public. He told the media that the burst of violence was an isolated incident. Aguascalientes is quiet, is at peace...this does not happen every day. For a long time, his words might have served as an accurate description of the state of affairs in Aguascalientes. But the incident was a telltale mark that the