member, had no ties to narcotics trafficking, said his family and
friends. He is believed to be the first U.S. elected official killed in
the 4-year-old spasm of carnage.
the Mexican city where he died, once had a reputation for industry. But
the deaths of Salcedo and five men with him were among 11 killings with
signs of execution in the city that night, according to local media
reports.
Salcedo’s ties to the central Mexican city where he was killed highlight the dramatic shift in the city’s fortunes.
He met his wife, Betzy, in 1999 when she came from
“I don’t know if we lived in a bubble, but we never
thought we would be targeted,” said Salcedo’s brother Carlos. “We were
never looking over our shoulder.”
But criminality and lawlessness have descended on Durango state, where
is located, like a pestilence, attacking the city of 240,000 people
with special ferocity. Last year, more than 600 people were killed in
Durango, the fourth deadliest state total in the country.
For immigrants from Durango in
“There’s a lot of fear,”
Martinez said the federation was promoting a round-trip flight from
Salcedo, said they exchanged text messages hours before Salcedo was
kidnapped. “He said he was going to have a few beers. That was it,”
said Vu, who is also an assistant principal at
The couple was dining with Betzy’s former classmates
at a bar called Iguanas Ranas, next to the Buchacas pool hall Wednesday
evening. Shortly after midnight a group of armed and masked men burst
into the bar and asked who owned a truck parked out front,
investigators told The Times. No one claimed it so the gunmen went from
man to man, slapping them around until zeroing in on Salcedo and five
others. They were hauled away.
The bodies were discovered several hours later,
dumped in a field near a canal. Salcedo was killed by a single gunshot
to the head and had apparently not been tortured, said an official in
the state attorney general’s office in
Most of the other men had also been killed with a
single gunshot, but two bore numerous gunshot wounds, suggesting they
were the targets, the official said. None of the men killed with
Salcedo had criminal records, but investigators suspect one or two
might have been drug dealers.
No evidence indicates Salcedo had been specifically targeted, authorities said.
Residents of
which has a well-established seedy reputation. Its bars, pool halls and
nightclubs have been the scene of kidnappings and shootouts, and the
area is an easy place to buy drugs.
“I think he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and with the wrong people,” one resident said.
At
where Salcedo was once student-body president, then later served as
football coach and assistant principal, he was remembered as an
involved administrator, attending sporting events, dressing up on
“He’s helped every aspect of the school,” said junior
Salcedo as conscientious and hard working, a “giver” and a leader.
“This is a dagger in the hearts of a lot of people,” he said.
Salcedo’s brother Carlos said that on Thursday his
sister-in-law called to tell him his brother’s body had been found in a
ravine. He was the first in the family to hear the news. He said his
mother broke down. “She kept saying, ‘They took my Bobby,'” he said.
Durango has been gripped by a spasm of drug violence in the last few years fueled by a dispute over the territory.
The
One
immigrant leader, who did not want to be identified for fear of
retaliation, said people are routinely stopped at roadblocks run by
well-armed men outside
“They ask you, ‘Which group are you from: Los Zetas
or Los Chapos?'” said the immigrant leader. “This happened to me twice.
It’s terrifying. The traditional Christmas trip home is over. We go now
only when it’s an emergency.”
This violence has infected lowland, normally peaceful
In the last year, a generalized criminality has set
in across the town, encouraged by authorities’ ineffectiveness,
immigrants and residents say.
“It could be that a neighbor who doesn’t have work calls up and extorts a neighbor,” said
In the last year, many
businesses have closed as their owners fled. Franco said he knew a
family who received extortion and kidnapping threats and sold its
two-bus transportation line and left for
“Things are serious,” he said. “You have to be inside by
Martinez, the federation secretary, said extortion
and kidnapping have become scourges of the city’s middle-class business
owners. He said a brother-in-law who is an architect moved his firm
from an office to his house to avoid seeming wealthy and attracting
attention. His brother ran a purified-water store for five years until
receiving demands for weekly payment of protection money.
“Car lots, factories and restaurants have closed,”
Martinez said. “These are things you’ve never before seen in the state
of Durango.”
—
(c) 2010, Los Angeles Times.
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