More Than 20 Shot Dead in Monterrey, Mexico
At least 20 people were killed — even the hot dog vendor outside — when armed men sprayed gunfire on a bar in Monterrey, Mexico, late Friday, the latest sign of the business hub’s slide into violence in the past year and one of three slaughters over the weekend.
In other parts of Mexico, 11 bodies with gunshot wounds were found near a well on the outskirts of Mexico City, and 10 decapitated heads were found in Torreon, 500 miles north of the capital.
The weekend bloodshed prompted Alejandro Poire, the federal government’s security spokesman, to defend its crackdown on drug cartels and organized crime and blame the violence on a fight to the death among the groups.
Since President Felipe Calderón began an assault against criminal groups in 2006, more than 35,000 people have died, the government has said, though newspapers here say the toll is closer to 40,000. Polls have shown the public growing increasingly worried that the government has been unable to stem the violence.