EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Fourteen people have been taken into custody in Juarez in connection with attacks that left two police officers dead and another one injured Monday night.
Two of the suspects were wanted on murder warrants and others are suspects in 13 additional homicide cases, the Chihuahua state police said in a news release Wednesday morning.
The arrests took place during raids on homes in the Salvacar, Heroes de la Revolucion, Parajes del Sur and Roma neighborhoods, where police suspected the criminals were hiding out.
The seized vehicles were two Jeep Commanders; the guns included AK-47 and AR-15 assault rifles and 9mm pistols.
“As part of preventive efforts, 14 people were detained, with two having active arrest warrants, six rifles and four guns were seized along with bullets, tactical vests, cellphones and two vehicles,” the police statement said. “These arrests are in connection with the attacks of Monday on city police officers. […] some of the detainees, vehicles and weapons (seized) were involved in those events.”
Former municipal police Cmdr. Román Favela Barraza was shot dead inside a store he owned on Monday night, the first of three attacks against the city police in a span of three hours. A second, still unidentified city policeman was killed in his patrol vehicle outside a home and a policewoman was shot in the hand near another store.
State police Cmdr. Ricardo Realivazquez also was shot at inside his armored vehicle by municipal cops “by mistake,” according to authorities.
Favela had been suspended from his job since last year for reasons not yet confirmed by state authorities. However, former colleagues on Tuesday called him “a policeman committed to the people and to his job.”
This the fourth major spate of attacks against Juarez police in the past two years.
Police were targeted in March and May of last year after the arrest of leaders of two major gangs, La Empresa and Aztecas. In November 2019, the Mexicles gang set fire to vehicles, blocked streets and killed eight people — rivals and apparent bystanders — to prevent the transfer of their jailed leaders from a Juarez jail to a maximum-security prison in the interior of Mexico.
