Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility
Deadly Ambush on Americans Shows Mexico Lost Control of Area
gvw_ap_news
By Associated Press
Published 5 years ago on
November 6, 2019

Share

COLONIA LEBARON, Mexico — When drug cartel gunmen opened fire on American women and children in northern Mexico, the Mexican Army, the National Guard and Sonora state police were not there to protect them. It took them about eight hours just to arrive.

“The country is suffering very much from violence. You see it all over. And it ain’t getting better. It’s getting worse.” — William Stubbs, a pecan and alfalfa farmer who serves on a community security committee in the American-dominated hamlet of Colonia LeBaron
To villagers and others, the bloodshed seemed to demonstrate once more that the government has lost control over vast areas of the country to the drug traffickers.
“The country is suffering very much from violence,” said William Stubbs, a pecan and alfalfa farmer who serves on a community security committee in the American-dominated hamlet of Colonia LeBaron. “You see it all over. And it ain’t getting better. It’s getting worse.”
The lack of law enforcement in rural areas like the northern states of Chihuahua and Sonora once led the dual U.S.-Mexican residents of places like Colonia LeBaron to form their own civilian defense patrols.
Stubbs said that after the 2009 killing of anti-crime activist Benjamin LeBaron, residents positioned themselves each night for two years with high-powered binoculars to keep watch from the large “L” for “LeBaron” that stands on a hillside above the town.
Since then, he said, the cartels have left Le Baron and the town of Galeana a few kilometers to the north alone. But he said they have watched the cartels get stronger in the past two decades, with nearby communities in the mountains suffering from violence and extortion.

Nearest Government Security Force Was 100 Miles Away

This week, he said, the military told him that the town of Zaragoza had been about 50% abandoned.
Army chief of staff Gen. Homero Mendoza said Wednesday that Monday’s ambush — which killed three American mothers and six of their children — started at 9:40 a.m., but the nearest army units were in the border city of Agua Prieta, about 100 miles and 3½ hours away.
Soldiers didn’t start out for the scene until 2:30 p.m. and didn’t arrive until 6:15 p.m. — even while five surviving children lay hiding in the mountains with bullet wounds.
“There are areas where the government’s control is very fragile,” said Mexican security analyst Alejandro Hope.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador created the militarized National Guard after he took office last December to help law enforcement, but its 70,000 troops have to cover a vast territory.
“The government’s main policy tool, the National Guard, is not where it should be,” Hope said, noting that Sonora and Chihuahua states, with over 160,000 square miles (420,000 square kilometers) between them, have only about 4,100 National Guard officers stationed there, or about one for every 40 square miles. “It should be in the mountains, and it’s not there.”

Photo of the inside of a bullet-riddled vehicle
Foam floor puzzle pieces seen inside a bullet-riddled a vehicle that members of LeBaron family were traveling in, sits parked on a dirt road near Bavispe, at the Sonora-Chihuahua border, Mexico. Three women and six of their children, related to the extended LeBaron family, were gunned down in an attack while traveling along Mexico’s Chihuahua and Sonora state border on Monday. (AP Photo/Christian Chavez)

Residents Know They Can’t Fight the Cartels on Their Own

Questions have also arisen over whether the army can do its job even when it is present. On Oct. 17, soldiers were forced to release the captured son of drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman to avoid further bloodshed after Sinaloa cartel gunmen counterattacked in greater numbers in the city of Culiacan.
Colonia Le Baron is a place where the U.S. influence is evident everywhere you look: pickup trucks with license plates from California, Idaho, Colorado, Washington, and English-speaking customers eating hamburgers at Ray’s Restaurant, Coffee & Grill. Many of the dual citizens were born here, and their families have been here for decades.
Stubbs predicted that some people will move their families to the United States out of fear but will ultimately come back, as happened after the 2009 killing. He seemed dubious about López Obrador’s “hugs, not bullets” security strategy of trying to solve underlying social problems instead of battling the drug cartels with military force.
“I’m really shocked actually of his way of thinking, and it ain’t going to solve the problems,” he said.
Residents know they can’t fight the cartels on their own.

The Killers Were Believed to Be From La Linea

“We’re not experts in military and war and weapons,” Stubbs said. “We’re farmers, and we have great families and big families, and we definitely want our families to be peaceful.”

“Those who attacked the occupants (of the vehicles), they let the children go, so that we can deduce that it was not a targeted attack [against the families].” Army chief of staff Gen. Homero Mendoza
Mexican officials said the attackers may have mistaken the group’s large SUVs for those of a rival gang. The Juarez drug cartel and its armed wing, known as “La Linea,” or “The Line,” are fighting a vicious turf war against a faction of the Sinaloa cartel known as the “Salazar.”
“Those who attacked the occupants (of the vehicles), they let the children go, so that we can deduce that it was not a targeted attack” against the families, Mendoza said.
Most of the victims lived about 70 miles south of Douglas, Arizona, in the hamlet La Mora, founded decades ago by an offshoot of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Many La Mora residents call themselves Mormons but are not affiliated with the church. Many are related to the extended LeBaron family.
The killers were believed to be from La Linea, whose gunmen had entered Sinaloa cartel territory the previous day and had set up an armed outpost on a hilltop near La Mora and an ambush farther up the road. The Juarez cartel apparently wanted to prevent Sinaloa gunmen from entering their territory in Chihuahua state.
It was this force that the American mothers drove into.
[activecampaign form=29]

DON'T MISS

What Are Fresno Real Estate Experts Predicting for 2025 and Beyond?

DON'T MISS

First California EV Mandates Hit Automakers This Year. Most Are Not Even Close

DON'T MISS

California Senator Will Make Historic Appearance at Fresno City College Commencement

DON'T MISS

Gaza Ceasefire Talks in Cairo Near ‘Significant Breakthrough,’ Two Security Sources Say

DON'T MISS

Fresno County Farmer Sentenced to Prison in $650,000 Crop Insurance Fraud Case

DON'T MISS

Where Were the Most Car Crashes in Clovis? Police Release List

DON'T MISS

Protesters to Rally in Brooklyn After Pro-Israel Crowd Assaults Woman

DON'T MISS

Selma Teen’s Death May Be Tied to Fentanyl, Police Say

DON'T MISS

Blast Kills at Least 26 People in Nigeria’s Northeast, Residents Say

DON'T MISS

5-Year-Old Girl and Parents Among Those Dead in Vehicle Ramming in Vancouver

DON'T MISS

Feds Again Bump Up Water Allocation for Many Fresno County Farmers

DON'T MISS

Levi Strauss Shareholders Vote Against Proposal to End Diversity Programs

UP NEXT

Protesters to Rally in Brooklyn After Pro-Israel Crowd Assaults Woman

UP NEXT

Blast Kills at Least 26 People in Nigeria’s Northeast, Residents Say

UP NEXT

5-Year-Old Girl and Parents Among Those Dead in Vehicle Ramming in Vancouver

UP NEXT

Death Toll in Iran’s Bandar Abbas Port Blast Rises to 70

UP NEXT

Autopsy Confirms Gene Hackman Died From Heart Disease

UP NEXT

Iran Proposes Meeting With Europeans Before Next Talks With US, Diplomats Say

UP NEXT

Saudi Arabia and Qatar to Pay Off Syria’s Debt to the World Bank

UP NEXT

Pakistan Defense Minister Says Military Incursion by India Is Imminent

UP NEXT

Huge Power Outage Paralyzes Parts of Spain and Portugal

UP NEXT

US Sanctions Target Deliveries of Oil and Gas to Houthis

Where Were the Most Car Crashes in Clovis? Police Release List

12 hours ago

Protesters to Rally in Brooklyn After Pro-Israel Crowd Assaults Woman

12 hours ago

Selma Teen’s Death May Be Tied to Fentanyl, Police Say

12 hours ago

Blast Kills at Least 26 People in Nigeria’s Northeast, Residents Say

12 hours ago

5-Year-Old Girl and Parents Among Those Dead in Vehicle Ramming in Vancouver

13 hours ago

Feds Again Bump Up Water Allocation for Many Fresno County Farmers

13 hours ago

Levi Strauss Shareholders Vote Against Proposal to End Diversity Programs

13 hours ago

US and Mexico Have Reached Agreement on New World Screwworm, Ag Secretary Rollins Says

14 hours ago

Death Toll in Iran’s Bandar Abbas Port Blast Rises to 70

14 hours ago

Selma Mayor Responds to Criminal Charge

15 hours ago

California Senator Will Make Historic Appearance at Fresno City College Commencement

For the first time in Fresno City College’s 115-year history, a United States senator will speak at its commencement ceremony. California De...

11 hours ago

11 hours ago

California Senator Will Make Historic Appearance at Fresno City College Commencement

Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a house, in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip April 28, 2025. (REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa)
11 hours ago

Gaza Ceasefire Talks in Cairo Near ‘Significant Breakthrough,’ Two Security Sources Say

11 hours ago

Fresno County Farmer Sentenced to Prison in $650,000 Crop Insurance Fraud Case

12 hours ago

Where Were the Most Car Crashes in Clovis? Police Release List

Officers with the New York Police Department outside the Chabad Lubavitch World Headquarters in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, on Monday, April 28, 2025. The Police Department said it was preparing for new protests in Brooklyn on Monday after a woman was verbally and physically assaulted by hundreds of pro-Israel demonstrators there last week. (Victor J. Blue/The New York Times)
12 hours ago

Protesters to Rally in Brooklyn After Pro-Israel Crowd Assaults Woman

12 hours ago

Selma Teen’s Death May Be Tied to Fentanyl, Police Say

At least 26 people were killed and three injured on Monday when two vehicles struck an improvised explosive device in Nigeria’s insurgency-hit Borno state, an attack residents blamed on Boko Haram. (Shutterstock)
12 hours ago

Blast Kills at Least 26 People in Nigeria’s Northeast, Residents Say

Visitors pay their respects at a memorial after a vehicle drove into a crowd during a Filipino heritage festival in Vancouver, British Columbia, Sunday, April 27, 2025. (AP/Lindsey Wasson)
13 hours ago

5-Year-Old Girl and Parents Among Those Dead in Vehicle Ramming in Vancouver

Help continue the work that gets you the news that matters most.

Search

Send this to a friend