THE BORDER REPORT

PROTESTS AS A SPOKESMAN IS GUNNED DOWN

The murder of a police spokesman in Culiacán is generating protests in Sinaloa this morning as reporters from national and regional newspapers try to push government officials into solving the case quickly – something that has happened in less than five percent of all journalist murder investigations since 2000. Oscar Rivera, a spokesman for the Culiacán police department, was gunned down yesterday afternoon. A car reportedly followed him as he drove away from his office in a Chevrolet Suburban. The killers fired 30 rounds into the SUV. The murder took place about a block from the governor's office. Rivera was not a police officer himself; he was actually a newspaperman who worked for the regional newspaper Noroeste in Culiacán and also founded Cambio 21, a news and analysis magazine in this city created to interest high school and college students in becoming reporters. In 2005, he left journalism and went to work for the city government instead. What interested me was the rapid response of the Mexican Feds in the case. SIEDO, the organized crime investigations arm of the Attorney General's Office, arrived early this morning from Mexico City to take over the case. I've watched SIEDO let a case languish for as much as three months before getting involved in other homicides. I don't yet know why they responded so quickly. But there's been signs that a peace treaty between the Sinaloans and the Gulf Cartel is evaporating. Now maybe Rivera was involved in the life and maybe he wasn't. The latest intelligence coming up my way is that the Mexican Feds are beginning to hit Sinaloa pretty hard. Much military, checkpoints, raids and arrests throughout the state. Was he collaborating with them? What were you touching Rivera? Who'd you get too close to? We may never know.

-- Michael Marizco