Mexico: Three People Connected to the U.S. Consulate in Juarez Executed in Front of Their Children
March 15th, 2010All governments routinely run covert operations out of their embassies and consulates. I have no good reason to believe that this incident had anything to do with covert operations, however, multiple articles quote family members and neighbors who don’t know what Lesley A. Enriquez did at the consulate. “Officials” in Washington also don’t know what she did there.
Is there more to this than “senseless violence”?
Via: Los Angeles Times:
Three people connected to the U.S. Consulate in Mexico’s deadliest city, Ciudad Juarez, were shot to death by men who intercepted their cars as they returned from a child’s birthday party, officials said Sunday. Two of the dead, an American couple, were discovered slain in their vehicle, their uninjured baby crying in the back seat. President Obama on Sunday expressed outrage at the drive-by slayings. The three victims were killed in broad daylight Saturday near the city’s border with El Paso.
Ciudad Juarez, a key entry point for drugs into the U.S., has seen a staggering increase in bloodshed as narcotics gangs battle for control of smuggling routes, turf and market share. Mexico’s raging drug war has claimed thousands of lives, including those of some Americans. But this appears to be the first time in recent years that Mexican drug traffickers have attacked U.S. diplomatic personnel and their families.
In response to the escalating violence, the State Department on Sunday told employees they could send family members and other dependents home to the U.S. from six northern Mexican cities where Washington maintains consulates. It also updated its existing travel warnings, cautioning Americans about traveling to or within northern Mexican states and strongly cautioning American youth about spending their spring break in Mexico.
The dead couple were identified by Mexican authorities as Lesley A. Enriquez, 35, an employee of the consulate, and her husband, Arthur H. Redelfs, 34. Redelfs was a detention officer with the El Paso County Jail, a relative told the Associated Press. Neither the relative nor U.S. officials in Washington were able to specify Enriquez’s job at the consulate.
The third person killed was identified as the husband of a Mexican employee of the consulate. He was traveling with two children, both of whom were injured, according to the state prosecutor’s office in Ciudad Juarez.
A security official in Ciudad Juarez said the victims were obviously targeted but that the motive was still under investigation.
Sure sounds like terrorism to me. When do we invade?