A veteran crime reporter in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juárez [2] was fatally shot as he left his home Nov. 13. The reporter, Armando Rodríguez Carreon, worked for the newspaper El Diario. He was in a car with his young daughter when he was shot at least eight times, authorities said. The gunmen fled. Rodríguez, 40, had extensively covered the narco-violence wracking the city. (NYT [3], Nov. 13)
Rodríguez Carreon's newspaper career closely paralleled the violent rise of the Juárez Cartel [4] and the women's slayings that became known worldwide as "femicide." Popularly known as "El Choco," Rodríguez was among the first reporters to write about the discoveries of raped and slain women [2] on the outskirts of Ciudad Juárez. (Frontera NorteSur [5], Nov. 14)
The police in northwestern Mexico are searching for 27 farm workers who were kidnapped by dozens of heavily armed men wearing military-style uniforms Nov. 10. The attorney general of Sinaloa [6] state says the assailants rousted the workers from bed at a vegetable farm just outside the state capital of Culiacán. The workers, men 16 to 61 years old who make less than $10 a day, were taken away in a caravan of sport utility vehicles. Local news reports indicate that a drug gang (presumably linked to the Sinaloa Cartel [7]) may have abducted the men for forced labor on marijuana plantations. (NYT [8], Nov. 11)
See our last post on Mexico's narco wars [9].
