Mexican official working for US feds gunned down in America
Tuesday, July 28th, 2009 at 10:20 am | By: Radical Russ
(AP) EL PASO, Texas — The eight bullets that leveled Jose Daniel Gonzalez Galeana outside his home just doors from the city’s police chief were fired at close range and left little doubt about their message.
Gonzalez, a Juarez cartel lieutenant shot on his quiet El Paso cul-de-sac this spring, was working for U.S. officials as a confidential informant, sources told The Associated Press, and experts suspect his slaying may be the first time assassins from one of Mexico’s violent drug gangs have killed a ranking cartel member on American soil.
Cartel-affiliated hit men have violently, and fatally, disciplined low-level, American-based drug dealers in the U.S. But El Paso police said Gonzalez was a lieutenant in the Juarez cartel, which traffics in marijuana, cocaine and heroin. The cartel was once among the most dangerous in Mexico, but has recently lost some standing because of arrests, deaths and infighting.
El Paso police don’t yet have an official motive in Gonzalez’s slaying, but chief Allen said detectives are working on the assumption that a cartel colleague discovered he was discussing their illegal activities with federal agents.
How many gangland-style executions will have to take place on American streets before we get serious about legalizing these murderers right out of business? I hear a few people complain about taxing and regulating marijuana as a legal substance because then the big bad ol’ government will have its hands on it, but last I checked the IRS doesn’t send hit men out to quiet residential neighborhoods to deliver a “message” about delinquent tax payments.
