Weekend Yields Ten Drug Gang-Style Killings

(Acapulco, NA 6 December) Over the weekend, ten more young men lost their lives in drug-gang-style executions in the poorer suburbs of Acapulco and more distant villages, where turf battles are still in progress. Three were discovered in the Zapata neighborhood, where a fourth person appears to have been wounded and carried away. The events took place at 3:00 am on Sunday. Local residents heard automatic gunfire and dogs barking. Police hurried to the scene to find the three victims. Around 7:00 pm yesterday another person was shot in neighboring Renacimiento. The victim has not yet been identified. He is a male, probably in his twenties. He was shot in the face, execution-style.

Six other young men fell victim to armed violence in other neighborhoods outside the ridge that forms Acapulco’s amphitheater and the bay, each dying from multiple gunshot wounds inflicted by AK-47 automatic rifles and similar arms. One of them was identified as Juan Carlos Leyva Ramos, alias “El Pipis,” a recognized drug gang member. A tell-tale “narco message” was left by his body, written on poster board. The contents of narco messages are seldom made public. Two of the victims were a father and a son in Coyuca de Benitez, several miles north of Acapulco along the coast. They had been attending a party when gunmen intercepted them and shot them. The father was 53, and the son 20. The gunmen severed the ear of the father prior to fleeing. This small community has been especially afflicted by drug violence over the last several years.