Zetas drug gang ordered the killing of a mayor in northern Mexico because he had disciplined police officers secretly working with the cartel, authorities said Tuesday.
Nuevo Leon state Attorney General Alejandro Garza y Garza said several of the seven police officers arrested in the killing of Santiago Mayor Edelmiro Cavazos admitted they worked for the Zetas as lookouts.
Garza y Garza said Cavazos had reprimanded some traffic police officers for wrongfully fining mountain bikers and applied disciplinary measures that included pay cuts.
"They say that since he scolded them ... they figured he was working for their enemies," the prosecutor said.
Garza y Garza said the officers complained to their cell leader who ordered the killing.
He said Cavazos, who was kidnapped last week from his home and found shot to death on a dirt road three days later, had no links to organized crime.
Cavazos' slaying comes amid increasing violence in the northeast of the country attributed to a dispute between the Gulf cartel and its former allies, the Zetas.
Damien Searle, 24, of Wilson Street, had engaged in “gangsterism”.
“This is Underbelly stuff. Career criminals engage in this sort of behaviour.
"There is absolutely no place for it in the community,” he said.
Searle pleaded guilty in the Warrnambool Magistrates Court to 17 charges.
He was sentenced to 31 months’ jail and has to serve 18 months before being eligible for parole.
Searle was also disqualified from driving for 24 months and ordered to pay $240 compensation.
Police alleged that at 10pm on December 2, 2008, Searle went to Camperdown’s Lake Bullen Merri with a .22 rifle and fired shots which whizzed past two fishermen.
He fired another three or four shots prompting the fishermen to grab a torch and flash their car lights.
Searle then fired another six shots at a sign, causing $240 damage before driving off as a police van arrived.
Searle drove around the van and past another police car which had activated its lights and siren.
There was a police pursuit and Searle drove through a stop sign with his lights off before the chase was terminated.
Two weeks later Searle went to a friend’s home in Melton and was offered $500 to fire shots into a house where an alleged police informer lived.
He took a sawn-off semi-automatic .22 rifle and at 2.45am fired three shots from a stationary car into the house.
A woman and nine-year-old girl were in the home asleep.
On August 13 this year Searle was driving east along the
Cobden-Warrnambool Road in a stolen white Ford Laser sedan which he had fitted with false number plates.
He overtook a B-double truck around a blind bend, went within two car lengths of being involved in a head-on crash and spun out of control.
Searle gave police a false name and address, refused to take an evidentiary breath test and took off with police in pursuit.
Three gunned down in Melbourne shootings - Yahoo! News: "Two men were gunned down in a popular Melbourne bar area on Friday, shortly after the killing of a known crime figure sparked fears of a new gang war in the city's notorious underworld.
The two were killed about six hours after Macchour Chaouk, bearded patriarch of a Lebanese crime family which is feuding with a rival clan, was shot at his heavily secured home.
Police did not know whether the two incidents were linked. A suspect and a weapon were held after the second shooting, while the gunman who killed Chaouk was still at large.
'At this stage we've got nothing to link it,' a police spokesman told AFP."
Family, friends hold vigil for shooting victim John P. Garcia - KansasCity.com: "John P. Garcia visited the corner of Cesar Chavez and Mercier avenues — a neighborhood hangout — early Sunday to promote his new rap CD, relatives say.
As he mingled with the two dozen or more people about 4 a.m., someone inside a passing car opened fire. Garcia was mortally wounded.
Relatives think the shooter may have been from a gang in Kansas City, Kan. They don’t think Garcia, 28, was in a gang or was the intended target, although they acknowledge that some gang members may have been in the crowd.
A massive gathering of friends and family at Garcia’s vigil Wednesday night was a testament to the magnitude of his goofy, loving and friendly personality, said his father, John Garcia. He loved his family unconditionally, according to his wife, Celena Garcia, and greeted friends and strangers alike with a hug and a handshake.
“Everywhere he went, he knew somebody,” she said"
Family of gang leader Jeff Fort sues PBS and CeaseFire - chicagotribune.com: "family of notorious Chicago gang leader Jeff Fort has sued the Public Broadcasting Service and the local anti-violence group CeaseFire on Wednesday, alleging that a film crew taped a funeral for Fort's mother this year without permission.
During the May 13 funeral, the crew took unauthorized footage of Fort's mother, Annie Gibson Bacon, as she lay in an open casket, according to the lawsuit filed by Bacon's daughter and grandson in Cook County Circuit Court.
Elnora Luten and Naji Mustaafa Fort also allege that the crews, who were helped by CeaseFire, captured images of them grieving at the funeral. 'The apparent motivation for the videotaping of the funeral was the relationship between Annie Gibson Bacon and her son, Jeff Fort,' according to the lawsuit.
Fort, the imprisoned former leader of the El Rukngang, is not named as a party to the suit. Fort is in prison for separate convictions for murder and conspiring with the Libyan government to commit terrorist acts in the United States."
Gang members arrested in Indiana - 14 News, The Tri-State's News and Weather Leader-: "Suspected gang members are rounded up in southwestern Indiana and most now face deportation.
Federal Immigration agents joined local police agencies to arrest 14 foreign-born suspects described as violent gang members.
The 14 men were taken into custody over the last two days, and most are from the Jasper and Evansville areas. Federal agents say they're extremely dangerous and had the weapons to prove it.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security Gail Montenegro says, 'We use our unique authority to actually remove these individuals from the community and from the United States.'"
'American Gangster' ex-wife Juliana Farrait-Rodriguez in plea discussions with feds - NYPOST.com: "ex-wife of notorious 'American Gangster' drug lord Frank Lucas is eyeing a possible plea deal for allegedly selling two kilos of cocaine to undercover drug agents.
A lawyer for Juliana Farrait-Rodriguez this afternoon won a 60-day delay of her case to continue negotiations with prosecutors.
The 63-year-old former beauty queen -- whose dyed dirty-blonde locks are growing out white in jail -- didn't speak during her brief appearance in Manhattan federal court.
Defense lawyer Hugo Harmatz declined to comment afterward.
Farrait-Rodriguez, who was the inspiration for the 'Eva' character in the 2007 flick in which Denzel Washington played her murderous ex-hubby, was allegedly caught in a DEA sting operation in Puerto Rico in May."
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