Police officials investigate a truck involved in a shootout which killed city police chief Arturo Esparza in Garcia, Mexico, Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2009. Gunmen assassinated an army general recently named police chief of Garcia in the latest attack against a military official appointed to take over municipal police forces, which President Felipe Calderon has acknowledged are plagued with corruption.
(AP Photo)
Police commander slain in Mexico's deadliest city
Police officials investigate a truck involved in a shootout which killed city police chief Arturo Esparza in Garcia, Mexico, Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2009. Gunmen assassinated an army general recently named police chief of Garcia in the latest attack against a military official appointed to take over municipal police forces, which President Felipe Calderon has acknowledged are plagued with corruption.
(AP Photo)
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico—Authorities say gunmen have killed a police commander in Mexico's deadliest city, where a dismembered, decapitated body was found hours before.
Police spokesman Jacinto Segura says Noel Martinez was shot inside his car Friday morning. Martinez is a former military officer who was a district supervisor for the police in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas.
The city is caught in a turf war between drug cartels that has killed more than 2,000 people this year.
State prosecutor's spokesman Arturo Sandoval says authorities earlier Friday found a beheaded man in front of a university campus.
Drug violence has killed nearly 14,000 people nationwide since the government launched a crackdown on cartels in 2006.
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