DEADLY SHOOTOUT ERUPTS IN STREETS OF NUEVO LAREDO

One man is dead and three others in custody following an early morning
shootout Friday in Nuevo Laredo between state police and drug cartel
gunmen believed responsible for at least 10 homicides here --
including the death of a local police officer Thursday night.

The firefight, which started about 1 a.m., ignited when a team of
state police officers approached a home they suspected was used by the
men who hours earlier had killed police officer Jesus Segovia Sanchez,
authorities said.

Two cartel members were arrested and another injured in the early
morning melee. One state police officer also was injured in the shootout.

At the scene, officers discovered the body of a gunman, identified
only as "El Mara" because of the distinctive Mara Salvatrucha gang
tattoos on his body.

Police said the three suspects admitted at least 10 homicides,
including the killings earlier this month of two state cops, one of
them the chief homicide investigator, according to a press release
issued by the state attorney general's office.

The suspects, who were in the driveway of the home when the officers
arrived, opened fire and the shootout dragged out for more than an
hour, said a U.S. investigator briefed by Mexican authorities on the
incident.

The news release identified the arrested men as Juan Francisco Ortiz
Rocha, Erick Mendez Hernandez and Oscar Leonel Mendoza Padilla. A
fifth cartel member involved in the shootout escaped.

The captured men belong to the Sinaloa Cartel, which is locked in a
turf battle with the Gulf Cartel for control of smuggling corridors
into Texas, the U.S. official said. That battle is responsible for
about 120 slayings in Nuevo Laredo this year.

On Thursday, Segovia became the 11th law enforcement authority to be
gunned down here this year, authorities said Friday.

Assailants armed with AK-47 assault rifles opened fire on Segovia and
his partner, Sergio Omar Escobedo, who was wounded in the shootout.

He was listed in stable condition at a hospital after being shot four
times -- once in the side, once in the right leg, and once in each
arm.

Investigators said the two officers, Segovia and Escobedo, were on
patrol when they ran into high-caliber gunfire from a moving a white
four-door Crown Victoria.

An all-points search led investigators to a side street off Kilometer
10 south of Nuevo Laredo where they caught up with one of the arrested
men, Ortiz Rocha. Officers said Ortiz Rocha fingered the others and in
a matter of minutes, police officers were at a downtown location on
Reynosa Street where the second shooting occurred.

The Tamaulipas attorney general spokesperson told the Laredo Morning
Times the suspects provided details of several shootings in Nuevo
Laredo carried out between May 8-16.