This is just sad and my heart goes out to the families of the deceased. The infant daughter will now grow up without her parents, all because of the brutal acts of cowards.
Now on to some thoughts with this. We must do a better job at containing the border, and we must do a better job at protecting folks in Mexico. This attack is a clear message by the cartels that they are not pleased with the U.S. It is my view that once we said ‘hey, we will help Mexico out’, then we just declared war on the cartels. So when the cartels actually strike back and kill one of our own, we should now know that this is an act of warfare, and not some random killing.
Obviously we have been assisting Mexico in their war down south for awhile, and I have talked about that here. The question I have is will this attack result in us ratcheting up our assistance, or backing off? I also expect more demand on the private side of the house, when it comes to protecting companies operating down there. Hell, we might even see an increase of WPPS folks for Mexico. And of course, there is always the idea I floated here on the blog about how to deal with these thugs. Who knows, and I would like to hear what the readership thinks? –Matt
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A captured drug cartel cell and their tools of warfare.
Drug Slayings in Mexico Rock U.S. Consulate
March 15, 2010
By ELISABETH MALKIN and MARC LACEY
CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico — The married couple gunned down Saturday as they drove back from a children’s birthday party with their infant daughter in the back seat were concerned about the violence plaguing this border town, but they never believed they could be its next targets, the husband’s brother said in an interview on Monday.
The couple, Leslie Enriquez, 35, a pregnant American consulate worker, and her husband, Arthur H. Redelfs, 34, an officer at the county jail in El Paso, were within sight of the bridge leading to the United States border crossing when gunmen said to have links to drug traffickers drove up to their car and opened fire, killing them both.
“He was a wonderful man,” said the brother, Reuben Redelfs. “We just regret this as a senseless act of violence.”
Gunmen also killed the husband of another consular employee and wounded his two young children in a near-simultaneous shooting elsewhere in the city, in what appeared to be coordinated assaults on American officials and their families. The killings provoked outrage from Washington and raised new questions about whether employees of the United States and their family members were increasingly at risk of being swept into the cross-fire of Mexico’s bloody drug wars.
The couple had been married for a couple years and lived in El Paso, where they were raising their 7-month-old daughter, who was unharmed in the shooting. Mr. Redelfs said he was now caring for the girl.
Despite concerns about the security in Ciudad Juárez, the couple traveled frequently between Texas and Mexico, where they had friends and Ms. Enriquez worked in the visa section of the American Consulate, Mr. Redelfs said.
“They weren’t worried as targets,” he said.
Asked if he believed the couple were targets because of Ms. Enriquez’s consular job, Mr. Redelfs chose his words cautiously, saying, “I find it more than a coincidence that two separate incidents involving consular employees who were shot and killed occurred on the same day.”
Silvio Gonzalez, a spokesman for the United States Consulate in Ciudad Juárez, said the agency would be closed Tuesday “as we mourn the loss in our community.” The consular office was closed Monday for a holiday.
The killings came during a particularly bloody weekend when nearly 50 people were killed nationwide in drug-gang violence, including attacks in Acapulco as American college students began arriving for spring break.