450 Mexican federal police arrive in Ciudad Juarez to counter drug-cartel crime surge

More police sent to crime-plagued Ciudad Juarez

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — Jet planes loaded with 450 federal police officers arrived in this city, known as Mexico’s murder capital, on Tuesday to bolster a federal force struggling to control violent drug traffickers.

The law-enforcement surge boosts the number of federal agents in Ciudad Juarez to 3,500 and comes on the same day U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and top-level security officials met with Mexico’s leaders and pledged to help tackle the problem.

More than 2,600 people were killed last year in Ciudad Juarez, a city of 1.3 million across the border from El Paso, Texas. At least 500 people have died this year.

The violence is not limited to the border: In Veracruz, a southern port city on the Gulf of Mexico, a naval officer and a civilian died Tuesday during a pre-dawn shootout with gunmen who sped through a military checkpoint, military officials said in a statement.

One man was arrested at the scene, and 10 guns and a hand grenade were seized, the officials said.

Also Tuesday, gunmen barged into a motorcycle store in Tuxtepec in the southern state of Oaxaca and killed four people, officials said.

The attack was followed by shootouts between the gunmen and soldiers, but it was not clear if anyone else was killed, state Assistant Attorney General Fernando Santiago said.

In the northern border city of Tijuana, meanwhile, the police department announced Tuesday that it will switch its focus from battling drug traffickers to fighting common street crime.

Residents of the city have complained in recent months that police are ignoring home burglaries, car thefts and muggings, focusing instead on disrupting traffickers fighting over routes leading into San Diego, California.

While police will change course, soldiers sent by the government will continue to fight the cartels, state prosecutor Rommel Moreno Manjarrez told a news conference at a Tijuana shopping mall.

Brutal cartel-related crime has declined so far this year in Tijuana, but common crime is up 40 percent.

In Baja California state, which is home to Tijuana, the leader of the local legislature took a leave of absence this week after a video surfaced in which a policeman is seen questioning him about drugs supposedly found in his vehicle.

Apparently filmed on a policeman’s cell phone in late February, the video shows Victor Gonzalez Ortega slurring his words; he does not deny the claim there was cocaine in his car.

Gonzalez Ortega has not been charged, and the policemen who pulled over his sport utility vehicle have been suspended pending investigation. The officers say they brought him before a judge, who ordered him released.

Gonzalez Ortega could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

State Attorney General Rommel Moreno said lawmakers would have to lift Gonzalez Ortega’s immunity from prosecution, a protection enjoyed by most legislators in Mexico, before he could be charged.