MONTERREY, Mexico (Reuters) – Suspected drug hitmen killed a police chief on Sunday night in one of the most brazen attacks yet on senior officials in Monterrey, Mexico’s richest city, the local government said.
Homero Salcido was the head of the security and intelligence agency for the northern state of Nuevo Leon, of which Monterrey is the capital. Responsible for running the region’s command center, Salcido was shot five times inside the SUV he was found in, the state government said in a statement.
The killing of a state-level official was the latest sign of a sharp escalation of violence in Monterrey, once considered one of Latin America’s safest cities, as a war between the rival Gulf and Zetas cartels sucks the region deeper into Mexico’s drug war.
More than 34,000 people have died in drug-related violence across Mexico since President Felipe Calderon launched a crackdown on drug cartels in December 2006 and the killings have spread beyond traditionally volatile border cities.
Nuevo Leon state Governor Rodrigo Medina, who sent state police to set up rolling security checkpoints across Monterrey this month, vowed to push ahead, backed by the army, in the state’s fight against organized crime.
“This does nothing but to drive us forward, to make us redouble our strategy,” Medina told reporters.
Salcido, 40, had been in charge of Nuevo Leon’s top security agency since August of last year. He was the nephew of a former state police chief who left that post this month to be replaced by a military general.
The surge in violence in Monterrey, Mexico’s most modern city with strong U.S. ties where annual income is double the country’s average, is especially worrying for Calderon as companies question the safety of doing business there.
Mexico’s second city, Guadalajara, which had long been spared the beheadings and drive-by shootings tainting other areas of the country, is now also being plagued by road blockades and cartel shootings.
