False Alarm
May 18th, 2007 | By Michel Marizco | Category: General News, Organized Crime, Politics
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THE BORDER REPORT
CANANEA, SONORA - Today's alarm that an armed convoy was returning to Cananea proved to be false, not that it mattered - whoever placed the call in to police managed to terrify the entire town. Marshal law was declared throughout
the city as Mexican Army Humvees and Federal Preventative Police trucks raced from Agua Prieta and Cananea 15 miles west to Cuitaca in search of the killers.
Friends of one of the dead officer's rushed out of his funeral to flee before the killers could arrive. Store fronts were barred shut and clasped with padlocks; only one Pemex gas station stayed open and the worst moment came when nobody could find Mayor Luis Carlos Cha Flores. Then the rumor sparked up that he had been levantado as well.
The calls were not witnesses or scared residents; they were threatening phone calls and were made to police stations in Cananea, Bacoachi, Arizpe, Naco and Agua Prieta, said Cananea mayor Luis Carlos Cha Flores.
I'm told that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection closed the port of entry in Naco for several hours after the news broke and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement brought in the Federal SWAT, Special Repsonse Teams, to hold the line. Schools in Naco, Ariz., went into lockdown.