Sunday July 22, 2018,  Juárez Body Count Now 108, With 645 for the Year

 

Compiled from information in Diario de Juarez (click here, here and here):

 Four days ago on July 18, as reported here the body count for all of July stood at 83.  Today it stands at 108, with 646 so far this year.  The latest victim was Eduardo Sotelo Guerra, 28, a former municipal police officer gunned down yesterday by assassins on motorcycles.  They approached the Jeep Cherokee he was in and shot at him repeatedly.  The Cherokee was parked at the time, and the driver attempted to escape.  A woman with him was unharmed but he died from a gunshot wound to the head. 

There is some suggestion the murder may have been related to an incident that occurred three years ago in which Mr. Sotelo, then 25, was involved in a late-night shooting which left a 17-year old adolescent,  Mario Alejandro Pérez Rivera, dead, after police shot at three youths.  The surviving youths said they had been surprised by the bright lights of a patrol car and began to run. They were shot at and Pérez was hit.  His mother said two of his friends, with him at the time of his death, told her the police inspected the body and verified that he was dead, but left the scene and did not report it.  Sotelo testified he had returned to the scene but could find no evidence anyone had been injured.  Forensic evidence showed the bullet wound that killed Perez had come from Sotelo's gun.  The other two officers were punished for failure to report the incident.  It is not clear from newspaper reports whether Sotelo was suspended from the police force.

Dropped Dead

From La Polaka:  (click here) On Friday an assassin who was badly wounded in an execution against a couple in the Arroyo de las Viboras, was abandoned by his accomplices after he died on the way to the hospital.  He was dropped dead on the street corner of 16 de Septiembre and Lerdo, near downtown Juarez.  Three other executions took place that night, two on Nueva Guinea Street, near the airport, and another in Col Independencia.