Wilderness Anyone? - Shootout On Border Briefly Closes Streets in El Paso

From KVIA.com and El Paso Times - El Paso Times photos
KVIA.com - CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico - A gunbattle erupted between Mexican police and gunmen near the Rio Grande on Saturday, killing one person and prompting U.S. authorities to close a highway that runs along the border in El Paso, Texas. There were no reports of bullets crossing into the U.S. side, El Paso police Detective Mike Baranyay said. The gunmen attacked a municipal police patrol on a boulevard in Ciudad Juarez next to the border river, said Ramon Salinas, a spokesman for Mexico's federal police. The fighting escalated when federal police rushed to help, he said. One gunman was killed and three municipal police officers were wounded. El Paso police closed that city's border highway for about 30 minutes because of the shooting. City police said the U.S. Border Patrol asked for the shutdown. Doug Mosier, a spokesman for the Border Patrol, said Paisano Street was closed "in the interest of public safety." He said that to his knowledge, it was the first time a street in El Paso has been shut down because of a shooting in Mexico. Traffic was halted on a stretch running from downtown El Paso to the city's northwest, passing the University of Texas-El Paso, which overlooks the border. The fighting occurred in the same area where a deadly shootout between gunmen and Mexican police sent seven bullets across the border and into the El Paso City Hall on June 29. Read more
From the El Paso Times - El Pasoan Ray Campos could see what was going on in Juárez from his home in Sunset Heights. He said he heard at least 40 gunshots from automatic weapons. The shootout lasted 20 to 30 minutes, he said. Eric Valdez was at the University of Texas at El Paso when he heard the shots, but he thought the sounds were just part of campus construction projects. Residents in Sunset Heights near UTEP took out binoculars and stood on top of vehicles to see what was going on across the border. Read more
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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It is hard to comprehend that Bingaman continues to push for wilderness. There has to be something more to this than "save the cactus and rocks".

Anonymous said...

Is Bingaman this stupid? Why in the world would he be in favor of creating a new corridor for the drug cartels?

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