CULIACAN, Mexico – It was a street party at a popular gathering place, typical of Saturday nights in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. There were drinks and a band. Then, shortly before midnight, a white pickup screeched to a stop on Palm Tree Street in the town of Navolato. At least four gunmen got out and sprayed the party with semi-automatic gunfire.
Eight people were killed, among them women and teenagers. Several more were seriously wounded, said Jose Luis Leyva of the state prosecutor’s office in Culiacan, the state capital 32km (20 miles) to the east.
The shooting may have been part of a string of apparent vigilante attacks in which low-level criminals have been killed by armed squads thought to be working with drug-traffickers or police – or both. Over 30 carjackers and robbers have been killed in similar circumstances in Sinaloa in the last few months, according to a count by journalists.
Two of the victims in Saturday’s shootings had criminal records for stealing cars, Mr Leyva said in a rushed news conference on Sunday. “The dead included two boys ages 15 and 16 and two women ages 18 and 25,” Mr Leyva said.
Sinaloa is home to many of Mexico’s drug kingpins, and the cartels hold sway over large parts of the Pacific state. With the border state of Chihuahua, it has the highest rate of slayings in the country.
The government of president Felipe Calderon deployed the Mexican army in Sinaloa in 2007 to fight traffickers and restore law and order. More recently, however, army operations have concentrated on rural regions of the state where marijuana has been cultivated for generations. – (LA Times-Washington Post)