[angelize56]

This is certainly horrible! Mob mentality at its worst! Nothing like doing this to men who they have no idea what they were doing there near the school! Nothing like assuming the mob knew what the men were up to...sure...burn them alive and ask questions later!

Candy: Will the Mexican authorities review the videotape and actually arrest anyone in this incident???

Agents Beaten, Held For Hours, Set On Fire

POSTED: 8:27 am EST November 24, 2004

MEXICO CITY -- A crowd angry about recent child kidnappings cornered plainclothes federal agents taking photos of students at a school on Mexico City's outskirts and burned the officers alive, the latest example of mob justice in a country beset by corrupt police and high crime.

Officials said two agents were killed and one was hospitalized.

Federal police director Adm. Jose Luis Figueroa told local media that the three agents went to the southeastern Mexico City school in an unmarked car as part of an operation against drug dealing.

The killings, filmed and broadcast on local television stations, were carried out by a crowd of people who cheered, chanted and shouted obscenities as they kicked and beat the agents. The mob then dowsed two officers with gasoline and set them ablaze.

Police didn't make any immediate arrests; officials said they were investigating.

In the video, the agents, blood streaming down their faces, spoke into the cameras before the burning, saying they were federal anti-terrorism agents who had been sent to the area on official business.

The agents were held by the mob for several hours before they were killed. Figueroa said heavy traffic and residents who blocked authorities from moving kept police from responding in time.

The third agent, badly beaten, was rescued by police.

Images taken from a helicopter showed dozens of residents milling around the two burned, motionless bodies left in a street. Dozens of police in full riot gear moved in more than an hour later and dispersed the crowd.

The violence began in the early evening, when locals collared three men staking out a school in the San Juan Ixtlayopan neighborhood. (Collared....without even knowing who the men were....did they bother asking!!!)

The area has been tense since two youngsters disappeared and were feared kidnapped from the school. Some in the crowd appeared to believe the agents were kidnappers. (Then they should have just held them until authorities could arrive to either prove or disprove their beliefs!)

When asked about complaints that authorities had failed to respond to demands to investigate the disappearances, Figueroa said a full schedule had prohibited federal authorities from concentrating on the case.

Mexicans, frustrated by government corruption and soaring crime rates, have often taken justice into their own hands.

Earlier this month in another town on the capital's outskirts, police rescued a 28-year-old man that residents were threatening to beat to death for allegedly trying to steal a guitar and tape deck from a community center.

Two years ago, a mob beat to death two of three youths who allegedly tried to rob a taxi driver in Mexico City.

For Candy...the link: http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/3946530/detail.html

[LANMaster]

Wow!
This is mob mentality personified.

Nothing about this resembles justice.

I hope they are able to catch those who started it and prosecute them for the murders.

[angelize56]

I'm waiting to hear from Candy on this....she has company until the first week of December...a busy busy bee...but I can wait!

[angelize56]

Mexico sounds like a nice place to visit!

Brother Of Ex-Mexican Prez Slain

MEXICO CITY, Dec. 7, 2004

(AP) The bruised, suffocated body found in an abandoned car points to an attempt to extract information, said state prosecutors investigating the death of Enrique Salinas de Gortari, the younger brother of former Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortari.

The killing of the businessman with a history of financial difficulties raised new questions about the embattled Salinas family Tuesday as authorities acknowledged that French authorities had an outstanding request to locate the victim.

Raul Salinas, another of the ex-president's three brothers, is serving nearly 27 years in prison for masterminding the murder of his former brother-in-law. Swiss and Mexican authorities struggle to determine how he came by tens of millions of dollars in Swiss accounts.

The former president, who served from 1988 to 1994, is widely blamed for the economic collapse that immediately followed his term. After leaving office, he spent several years in self-imposed exile in Ireland, but has spent more time in Mexico in recent years.

A businessman and engineer who had lived an hour's drive outside Mexico City in Cuernavaca, Enrique Salinas stayed out of politics and kept a relatively low profile.

But he was called in 1996 to testify in Paris as part of an investigation looking into possible embezzlement of public funds and drug trafficking activities. Officials never brought any charges.

More recently, Enrique Salinas appeared to be under financial pressure from failed business ventures and the expense of supporting children and a divorced wife, Mexico State Attorney General Alfonso Navarrete Prida said on Tuesday in a radio interview.

Navarrete said he has solicited information from the federal Attorney General's Office about a French request to Interpol on Nov. 22 to locate Salinas.

"So far the investigations do not report even the existence of an open file against Enrique Salinas" in Mexico, Navarrete said. "And investigations by foreign governments, what's being reported is a request for a location — not an arrest warrant.

"What we do have for sure is, yes, there is a homicide whose fundamental tinge suggests extortion."

On Tuesday, investigators examined evidence collected since the body's discovery on Monday in Huixquilucan just west of Mexico City.

A cellular phone was found in the car and investigators said they were studying the images captured by a street-surveillance camera that showed someone getting out of the car in which Salinas' body was found with a plastic bag over his head. The figure then got into another dark-colored vehicle and left.

President Vicente Fox said on Tuesday that the killing didn't appear to be politically motivated because Salinas wasn't a public official.

Carlos Salinas on Tuesday said he was confident authorities would solve the killing would be solved by authorities, during a viewing for Enrique in Mexico state. A private funeral was being held on Tuesday.