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http://www.latimes.com/news/la-fg-mo...tory?track=rss
These were highly trained men, notice how one of them makes sure the security guard is dead by firing into him with his pistol twice and then picking up his accomplice's weapon. Very graphic video at the link.
Reporting from Monterrey, Mexico -- In the seconds before the gunmen burst into the tiny Lozano Garza jewelry store in this city's downtown, three shoppers browsed the display cases.
An unarmed security guard sat by the door.
Then three men with assault rifles ran in, one after the other, the muzzles of their weapons ablaze.
By the time anyone reacted to the gunfire, it was too late. The four people collapsed in the barrage of bullets. One of the gunmen helped another, apparently wounded by a comrade, out of the store. Before the last killer fled, he fired final shots into a customer and the guard.
Twenty-three seconds after they came, the gunmen disappeared into the traffic of busy Francisco Madero Avenue, lined with hardware and lighting shops, taco vendors and newsstands. The page of a catalog on one case fluttered in the breeze.
...
Members of San Pedro's elite were busy diversifying their once-regional businesses into global companies and navigating Mexico's bumpy democratic transition, said Oscar Flores, a historian.
"They didn't think [drug violence] could come here," Flores said. "By the time they thought all this [drug violence] was important, it had grown a lot."
By 2005, Monterrey, one of Mexico's safest big cities, had become a disputed pathway for drugs headed to the United States.
The Gulf drug cartel controlled the areas of Nuevo Leon state around San Pedro; the city became an island controlled by the Sinaloa cartel, some of whose members had moved there, said a former city official who requested anonymity out of concern for safety.
...
An unarmed security guard sat by the door.
Then three men with assault rifles ran in, one after the other, the muzzles of their weapons ablaze.
By the time anyone reacted to the gunfire, it was too late. The four people collapsed in the barrage of bullets. One of the gunmen helped another, apparently wounded by a comrade, out of the store. Before the last killer fled, he fired final shots into a customer and the guard.
Twenty-three seconds after they came, the gunmen disappeared into the traffic of busy Francisco Madero Avenue, lined with hardware and lighting shops, taco vendors and newsstands. The page of a catalog on one case fluttered in the breeze.
...
Members of San Pedro's elite were busy diversifying their once-regional businesses into global companies and navigating Mexico's bumpy democratic transition, said Oscar Flores, a historian.
"They didn't think [drug violence] could come here," Flores said. "By the time they thought all this [drug violence] was important, it had grown a lot."
By 2005, Monterrey, one of Mexico's safest big cities, had become a disputed pathway for drugs headed to the United States.
The Gulf drug cartel controlled the areas of Nuevo Leon state around San Pedro; the city became an island controlled by the Sinaloa cartel, some of whose members had moved there, said a former city official who requested anonymity out of concern for safety.
...
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