By Aileen B. Flores
The El Paso Times
A criminal group seems to be fulfilling its threat to kill a state police officer a day in Chihuahua.
Several anonymous messages appeared Sunday on walls in Chihuahua City warning that one officer from the state attorney general’s office would be killed each day if two of the commanders in charge of the agency do not step down.
The messages, signed by the Juárez drug cartel also known as “La Linea,” said the commanders leading the investigative unit of the state police in central Chihuahua are supporting the Sinaloa drug cartel.
A cartel war began about four years ago after the collapse of an alliance between the drug-trafficking organizations of Sinaloa kingpin Joaquin “Chapo” Guzmán Loera and the Juárez cartel led by Vicente Carrillo Fuentes.
U.S. anti-narcotics officials have said Guzmán had made inroads into Chihuahua state, and several Juárez cartel lieutenants switched to his organization. The dispute set off a war that spawned a violent crime wave in Juárez and other parts of the state.
Sunday morning two officers were attacked by gunmen while guarding the house of Cmdr. Ernesto Aguilera Gutierrez, who is in charge of the state police in central Chihuahua.
Officer Cesar Alvarez was killed and another was wounded, said Eduardo Esparza Rodriguez, a spokesman for the Chihuahua State police. Esparza Rodriguez did not disclose the name of the officer who survived the attack.
At 8 a.m. Monday, just 24 hours after Alvarez was killed, another officer of the attorney general’s office was shot to death, Esparza Rodriguez said.
Officer Jose Del Bosque was killed when he was about to leave his house in the Francisco I. Madero neighborhood, Esparza Rodriguez said. Another person was injured in the shooting. No arrests have been made, he said.
Esparza Rodriguez said the Chihuahua attorney general’s office is aware of the messages, but authorities have not confirmed if the attacks are related to the graffiti on the walls.
Both cases are under investigation, he said.
The fight between the Juárez and the Sinaloa cartels has left more than 7,000 people dead in Juárez alone, including hundreds of women and children.
About 20 people were killed in Juárez this weekend, Chihuahua police officials said.
Copyright 2011 El Paso Times, a MediaNews Group Newspaper