Drug gangsters run police out of Mexican town

San Antonio Express-News:

The entire police force for a small city 85 miles south of El Paso abandoned its post after suspected drug gangsters ambushed a dance at a hall, killing six people including three officers, authorities said.

The mayor of Villa Ahumada, his second-in-command and the city police chief also left town after the weekend attack, said a city official reached today by telephone, who would identify herself only as Amalia.

“There is no municipal police force” there, said Marco Antonio Moreno, a state police spokesman in Ciudad Juárez, the city across from El Paso that has been an epicenter for drug violence this year along the Mexico-Texas border.

Moreno said the police force consisted of 10 officers but Reforma newspaper said the force totaled 23. The mayor was in the state capital of Chihuahua city, he said, about 150Ö miles south of Villa Ahumada.

State police took over the police station for the city of about 12,000 people on the main highway between Chihuahua city and El Paso. Mexican soldiers patrolled the streets, authorities said.

“There is no authority in this town,” said a hotel manager who requested anonymity, adding that businesses are closing early and people don’t venture into the street after sundown.

“There is a psychosis here ..... the situation is critical,” he said. “We’re locking ourselves inside. You don’t see a soul in the street after 8 at night.”

Warring drug gangs this year have reportedly killed more than 300 people in Chihuahua state, which borders Texas from El Paso to Big Bend National Park. Much of the killing has happened in Ciudad Juárez and its environs.

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Mexico needs more force in the area. The key in these situations is to protect the people. If they can protect the people two good things will happen. The people will help them find the bud guys and the bad guys will be frustrated in their efforts to control the area. It will be harder for them to move freely and intimidate people and other dealers. So mar much of the Mexican military has focused on large raids looking for the dealers. If they protect the people, the dealers will be exposed and come to them.