Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Mexico Drug Cartel Murders Anti-Crime Activist

This a national security issue. It is basically being ignored because the victims are brown. But when the killings start hitting the suburbs in America then we might wake up to the horrors on our border.

An anti-crime activist and a neighbor were killed in northern Mexico on Tuesday by gunmen believed linked to a drug cartel, a local legislator said.

Mexican anti-crime activists said the slaying of Benjamin LeBaron, a U.S. citizen, in Chihuahua state was the first time one of their own had been killed for denouncing crime and called it a chilling warning.

LeBaron led street protests in May demanding the release of his 19-year-old brother, Eric, who had been snatched by a kidnapping gang in May. The teenager was later freed.

Such gangs are frequently linked to drug cartels in Mexico, and there were signs that one such cartel may have been involved in Tuesday's killings of LeBaron and neighbor Luis Widmar, who apparently went to LeBaron's house to try to help him.

"A commando of 15 to 20 men came to Benjamin's house at 1:30 in the morning, and because they couldn't get in through the door, they broke out the windows," said state legislator Victor Quintana, basing his account on conversations with LeBaron's family.

"They kidnapped the two of them and they left them dead on a dirt road" just outside the town of Galeana, Quintana added.

He said witnesses reported the attackers were dressed in camouflage, "like uniforms." Mexican drug gangs frequently use fake police or army-style uniforms.

An official at the Chihuahua state prosecutor's office confirmed the deaths but offered no further details.

The victims were from a Mormon community in a region with many Mennonite communities.

A woman who identified herself as Widmar's mother-in-law told a local radio station she believed the killing was retribution for LeBaron's activism.

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