‘Some twisted evil’: Ambush in Mexico kills 6 kids, 3 moms
Cartel attacked Mormon family as they traveled
MEXICO CITY — Drug cartel gunmen ambushed three SUVs along a dirt road, slaughtering six children and three women — all members of a prominent Mormon family with dual U.S.-Mexico citizenship — in a grisly attack that left one vehicle a burned-out, bullet-riddled hulk, authorities said Tuesday.
Members of the LeBarón family, who have lived in a fundamentalist Mormon community in the border region for decades, were traveling in three separate vehicles when the gunmen attacked, several family members said. They described a terrifying scene in which one child was gunned down while running away, while others were trapped inside a burning car.
Two of the children killed were less than a year old, the family members said. The car they were in with their mother was set ablaze.
“When you know there are babies tied in a car seat that are burning because
of some twisted evil that’s in this world,” said a cousin of the women, Kenny LeBarón, “it’s just hard to cope with that.”
David Langford, whose sister Christina died in the attack, said that eight children had survived, including his sister’s 7-month-old infant. Several of the children survived after hiding by a tree, and one, about 12 years old, hiked several miles to get help, Langford said.
At least five had bullet wounds or other injuries and were taken to Phoenix for treatment.
One of the children who got away had been shot in the leg and the face and was in critical condition, Langford said.
He blamed cartels in the area for the attack, calling their members “some of the most wicked men on the face of the planet.”
Mexican officials said cartel gunmen might have mistaken the women’s SUVs for those of rival traffickers. But relatives of the victims said the gunmen knew they were firing on civilians.
“There’s been a lot of rival cartels fighting up in this area,” said Lenzo Widmar, one of the community members who found two of the destroyed vehicles. But he said a child who witnessed one of the shootings saw one of the mothers get out of her vehicle and put her hands up.
“They shot her anyway,” Widmar said. “They knew it was women and children.”
More than 200 bullet casings were found near the vehicles, state authorities said.
To airport, wedding
Widmar said the attacks began Monday morning after the women left the community of La Mora in Sonora state. One woman, Rhonita Maria Miller, was heading to Arizona to pick up her husband from the Phoenix airport, he said. The other two were going to accompany her as far as a main highway near the border, he said, and then head for the community of LeBarón, in nearby Chihuahua state, to attend a wedding.
Miller had car trouble, Widmar said, and the convoy returned to La Mora. When the vehicles set out anew, he said, Miller fell behind the other two women.
LeBarón was just outside the village of San Miguelito when her Chevrolet Tahoe came under attack, Sonora state security officials said. Assailants shot her and her four children, including 8month-old twins, relatives and officials said. The vehicle was then set on fire.
About 11 miles east, toward the Chihuahua state border, authorities found a second vehicle, a white Chevrolet Suburban, with the bodies of a woman and two children. Relatives identified them as Dawna Langford and her 11- and 3year-old children. They said several other children escaped from the vehicle.
The third vehicle, also a white Suburban, was found about a mile east of the Chihuahua border. The body of a woman was found nearby. She was identified as Christina Langford Johnson.
Another member of the clan, Julian LeBarón, said he discovered Christina Langford’s body and her infant when he reached her vehicle.
“I found Christina,” LeBarón told Ciro Gómez Leyva, a news host on Radio Formula. “She was outside her car, face down, murdered, and I found her baby, who was still alive.”
“I don’t know if there’s a war here or what’s happening,” LeBaron said.
Trump offers aid
Mexico has suffered a string of violent episodes in the past month.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said during a morning news conference Tuesday that the region where the attack took place “has been a very violent area for many years.”
Alfonso Durazo, Mexico’s security minister, said Tuesday that “there were serious advances in the investigation” and that the women’s SUVs “could have been confused by the criminal groups that are fighting in the region.”
Among those groups is a cell that is linked to the Sinaloa Cartel, which was led by Joaquín Guzmán Loera, known as El Chapo. When security forces tried to arrest one of his sons last month in Culiacán, almost 400 cartel gunmen took control of the city and forced the government to withdraw.
Earlier that month, 14 police officers were killed in Michoacán, in an ambush stemming from violent clashes in the state.
Other groups are trying to take control of the region where the attack took place, Durazo said.
President Donald Trump offered Tuesday to help Mexico eradicate the cartels.
“This is the time for Mexico, with the help of the United States, to wage WAR on the drug cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth,” he said on Twitter. “We merely await a call from your great new president!” he tweeted. “The cartels have become so large and powerful that you sometimes need an army to defeat an army!”
López Obrador defended his security strategy in the face of rising criticism that his government appears to be improvising against the power of criminal groups.
“You cannot put out fire with fire,” he said.
The president said: “There will be intelligence, which has been lacking, more than force. There will be prosecution, punishment. There will be a lot of attention to the population, especially for young people.”
But Monday’s brutal killings seem to have hit a new low, with infants, children and their mothers killed in broad daylight.
Later Tuesday, a White House spokesman, Hogan Gidley, said the presidents had discussed the violence and cooperation in the border region. Trump offered assistance “to ensure the perpetrators face justice,” Gidley said.
López Obrador said it was up to Mexico to deal with the matter.
“We appreciate and thank very much President Trump and any foreign government that wants to help, but in these cases we have to act with independence, according to our constitution and our tradition of independence and sovereignty,” he said.
Details of the brazen attack remained murky early
Tuesday.
It was unclear whether the attackers intentionally targeted the family, which has historically spoken out about the criminal groups that plague the northern border states of Sonora and Chihuahua, or whether it was a case of mistaken identity.
Julian LeBarón said in a telephone interview from Bavispe, Mexico, that the family had not received any threats, other than general warnings not to travel to Chihuahua, where they typically went to buy groceries and fuel.
‘We’ve had enough’
As he watched a helicopter fly off with the wounded children, LeBarón said that perhaps the killings would finally spur enough outrage to force change.
“We need the Mexican people to say at some point, ‘We’ve had enough,’ ” he said. “We need accountability; we don’t have that on any level.”
The massacre came a decade after two other members of the LeBarón family were kidnapped and murdered after they confronted the drug gangs that exercise de facto control over the empty endless spaces of the borderlands south of Arizona.
For decades, the LeBarón clan lived quietly in farming communities, maintaining close ties with family in the United States and speaking both Spanish and English.
Their community began in the 1940s when members of the LeBarón family moved to Mexico and practiced polygamy, which was forbidden by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Polygamy has largely faded from the community.
Kenny LeBarón said much of the family now lives in North Dakota, working in the oil fields and running their own businesses, but they frequently travel to the border area for holidays, vacations and other special events.
“We’re a huge family, but we’re very close,” he said.