Mexico City police commander killed outside home

[Mrs. Sharon B. Hodge]

Mexico City police commander killed outside home
By E. EDUARDO CASTILLO, Associated Press Writer

MEXICO CITY – A senior Mexico City police commander who oversaw raids in the capital's gang-filled Tepito neighborhood was slain in a drive-by shooting outside his home, officials said Tuesday.

Victor Hugo Moneda, who led the city's investigative police, was killed as he was getting out of his car Monday night, the Mexico City prosecutor's office said in a statement.

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Prosecutor Miguel Angel Mancera said the killing may have been a reprisal by criminals. No arrests have been made.

"We believe that it could have been some type of reaction against the actions that are being carried out by police," he told local media.

Moneda oversaw raids in Mexico City's notorious Tepito neighborhood and the 2006 capture of serial killer Juana Barraza, known as "The Little Old Lady Killer" because of the age of her victims.

Scores of police, soldiers and judicial officials in Mexico have been killed since the government launched a crackdown on organized crime two years ago.

Also Tuesday in the Gulf coast state of Tabasco, soldiers detained 11 police officers from four towns for questioning on suspicion of aiding the Gulf drug cartel, the Attorney General's Office said in a press statement.

The officers' names were found on "payrolls" or other written records seized from suspected cartel safe houses, according to the statement.

Tabasco, which borders Guatemala, is considered a key trafficking area for U.S.-bound drugs from Central America.

Army Gen. Jaime Rufino Hernandez said the arrests were part of the government's

"Operation Clean House," which has led to the arrest of more than a dozen high-ranking police and prosecution officials for allegedly passing information to the cartels.
In the northern city of Tijuana, across the border from San Diego, officials said four bodies were found early Tuesday.


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A police investigator looks on to a crime scene where a man was shot to death in Tijuana, Mexico, Friday, …

Mexico tightens police powers in raging drug war

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The body of a man killed in a shootout lies on a street in Tijuana, in Mexico's state of Baja California …

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico's Congress passed a packet of laws on Tuesday to give police and prosecutors more powers to put suspected drug smugglers and kidnappers behind bars as the country grapples with spiraling cartel violence.

The legislation, mainly secondary laws that complement reforms passed in March, should improve coordination between the federal and state governments and introduce controls on police recruitment to reduce infiltration by drug gangs.

"They are extra weapons, in the figurative sense, judicial tools ... that will simplify the paperwork involved in criminal cases," said opposition congressman Cesar Camacho of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which widely backed the laws as did opposition leftists.

Camacho said the reforms would respect people's rights while also stopping guilty criminals slipping through the net.

Drug gang violence has killed nearly 5,400 people this year, more than twice the number killed in 2007, as cartels lash back against conservative President Felipe Calderon's army-led drug war and fight each other over smuggling turf.

Police corruption runs all the way up from street level, and a number of senior officers -- including the head of the special organized crime investigation unit, SIEDO -- have been arrested on suspicion of selling information to cartels.

Mexicans are also bitterly angry at a surge in kidnappings which often end up with the victim being murdered irrespective of whether a ransom was paid and which are rarely ever solved.

The governor of the northern state of Coahuila is even pushing for a national debate on bringing back the death penalty for kidnappers who kill their victims.
The reforms passed this year will make it easier for prosecutors to order police raids and will mean organized crime suspects can be held for up to 80 days without formal charges.

One of the laws will set up a national register of cell phone users to try and clamp down on criminals who use phones to extort money or negotiate kidnap ransoms. Most of Mexico's 80 million cell phones are prepaid handsets that can be bought without showing any identification.

Kidnapping gangs often work for drug cartels, with ransoms providing easy cashflow.

(Reporting by Miguel Angel Gutierrez; Writing by Catherine Bremer, Editing by Anthony Boadle)