"Clown" shoots Mexican mobster at birthday party, nine killed around country

A gunman reportedly dressed as a clown shot on 18 October a member of Mexico's Tijuana cartel, one of the country's powerful gangs of the 1990s, at a family or children's party in the resort zone of Los Cabos in Baja California. The victim was identified as 63-year-old Francisco Rafael Arellano Félix who headed the Tijuana cartel with two brothers and was briefly imprisoned in the United States in 2007-8. Reports did not immediately clarify if the cartel remained active. The newspaper Reforma cited witnesses as saying that a "clown" walked up to him and shot him in the chest and head; police and troops apparently failed to find the gunman in spite of a subsequent search, Proceso reported on 19 October. In other incidents, two children aged 12 and 13 and a 19-year-old girl identified as their cousin were shot dead in Mexico City late on 18 October, Tabasco Hoy reported. They were shot with assault rifles used by the Army, and Proceso cited investigations as provisionally attributing the incident to a settling of criminal accounts. The review reported on 19 October the discovery of the bodies of four men shot days earlier, in a ditch south of the district of Culiacán in the north-western state of Sinaloa, while shooting incidents in the western port of Acapulco injured 10 and killed one on 19 or 20 October, Milenio reported. A young man was stabbed to death in the eastern city of Villahermosa early on 20 October, after refusing to "share a can of beer" with two suspected gangsters on the street, Tabasco Hoy reported.

Seven shot dead around Mexico, gang suspects held

Police in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila shot dead three gunmen on 10 February, reportedly in response to an ambush on a police convoy driving to the frontier city of Acuña. A shootout began after the gunmen fired on the convoy that had stopped on a highway over a puncture, Proceso reported. On 9 February in the northern district of Piedras Negras in Coahuila gunmen fired on a bullet-proof car carrying policemen and bodyguards of the state Public Security or police chief Gerardo Villarreal Ríos. This prompted gunfire and a car chase around the city, with the participation of soldiers and marines, Proceso reported. Four men were separately reported shot dead early on 10 February in and outside the west-coast resort of Acapulco, Milenio reported. In Culiacán in the north-western state of Sinaola, a man identified separately as head of security for one of two prominent drug traffickers was reported arrested alongside four associates. Jonhatan Sales Avilés - El Fantasma - was identified by sources as either the security chief of Mexico's leading trafficker Joaquín Guzmán Loera or of another trafficker Ismael Zambada; he was surprised and detained on the night of 9-10 February at a safe house earlier located by the army, CNNMéxico reported. The broadcaster observed that state authorities had earlier thought and hoped, that the army killed Sales in a shootout near Culiacán on 4 March 2012.

Ten killed around Mexico, locals arm against criminals

Ten people were reported killed in presumed criminal incidents around Mexico on 8-9 January, including three gunned down in the northern district of Saltillo and four in the north-western district of Tijuana. Another victim was an employee of the baking firm Bimbo, shot dead while driving a delivery van in the north-western city of Culiacán, Proceso reported on 9 January. On 8 January, police found 10 tonnes of marijuana in a mechanical workshop in Tijuana in the state of Baja California, although stamps on the sealed packets indicated these had previously been confiscated by police or the army. Nobody was arrested and it was not immediately clear why the load was seemingly abandoned or stolen. A police revision that day apparently indicated the load had been confiscated days before in three parts. The drugs formerly owned by the Sinaloa cartel, were handed over to state prosecutors, Proceso reported. The review separately reported that 200 residents of the western district of Ayutla de los Libres have been armed since 5 January and set up road blocks in response to persistent crime. The locals were controlling circulation in and out of Ayutla and declared they would not disarm until criminals had left the area. The governor of Guerrero where Ayutla is located, Ángel Aguirre Rivero reportedly told local media on 8 January that the measure indicated "the citizenry's desperation before organized crime and the lack of response by authorities," Proceso reported. Residents of Ayutla and two nearby districts mobilized on 5 January when a local policeman was kidnapped; the official was rescued and the kidnappers reportedly fled.

Ten killed around Mexico

Nine people were killed or found dead on 27 September around Mexico, in the states of Morelos and Veracruz and the western city of Guadalajara, Proceso reported. These included a man shot dead in a bar in Cuernavaca, the capital of Morelos, the bodies of two young men found in a ditch in Morelos - they had apparently been stabbed in the neck - and a businessman and a woman found dead in Playa Vicente in the eastern state of Veracruz. It seemed they had been beaten then shot to death; the businessman, Cecilio Cervantes, had been reported disappeared 10 days before. On 28 September, the body of a man shot to death was found wrapped in a "colourful" blanket near the Country Club in Culiacán, north-western Mexico, El Universal reported.