Six slain in wave of violence Sunday in Mexicali Valley

Six people were slain in shootings reported Sunday in various locations in Baja California’s Mexicali Valley west of Yuma, police said.

The slayings came amid ongoing violence attributed to rival drug-trafficking organizations battling for control of smuggling routes in the far-reaching valley that extends from south from Los Algodones and to the west to the city of Mexicali.

Police sources, however, did not attribute any motive in the slayings, and did not say whether the killings might be related. As of Monday afternoon, no suspects in the homicides had been arrested.

The killings marked an ominous start for Baja California’s newly elected governor, Marina del Pilar Avila Olmeda, who in her first speech Sunday after being sworn in vowed to make fighting crime and restoring public security the priority of her administration.

Weekend violence also occurred in neighboring San Luis Rio Colorado, Son., where one man was slain and other wounded in a drive-by shooting incident on

Saturday.

The killings in Baja California occurred or were reported in the evening or night hours Sunday.

The first was reported about 6 p.m., after Mexicali municipal police discovered two charred, semi-buried bodies in an area of dunes known as La Campiña, east of the city’s airport.

Police found numerous spent cartridges nearby, indicating the victims were slain in the same site their bodies were recovered. Neither of the victims have been identified.

A little more than an hour later, a 41-year-old man later identified as Jorge Ampelio Quintero Curiel was shot in an off-roading area known as Cuervitos, southwest of Los Algodones.

Quintero Curiel was rushed to a medical clinic nearby in Ciudad Morelos, where he died, police said.

Two men and a woman were slain about 8:30 p.m., in an area of dunes west of Algodones, not far south of the international boundary, police said.

Police said the three, all shot in the head, were found inside or on an off-roading vehicle left at the scene. One of the victims was identified as a Los Algodones resident, Jesus Eduardo Garibay, but the other two were not identified.

On Saturday in San Luis Rio Colorado, a 50-year-old man was killed and another man wounded when the vehicle in which they were traveling was fired upon from another vehicle at the intersection of Avenida Kino and Calle 21 about noon.

The wounded man, identified only as Jose Luis N., 67, was rushed to hospital. Police have not disclosed his condition.