POLICE CHIEF OF TIJUANA ASSASSINATED BY GUNMEN

TIJUANA, Mexico - In the latest example of the violence that has
gripped this border town, the municipal police chief was assassinated
yesterday morning by gunmen who sprayed his car with more than 100
bullets, authorities said.

Municipal Police Chief Alfredo de la Torre Marquez, 49, was driving
alone to his office after attending Mass when three cars came
alongside his GMC Suburban and gunmen opened fire with at least one
AK-47 assault rifle and a 9-mm handgun.

Tijuana, a city of 1.2 million people in northwestern Mexico across
the border from San Diego, has been plagued by violence stemming from
drug and arms smuggling. Dozens of police, judges, prosecutors and
others have been slain in Tijuana and its suburbs in recent years, a
violence spiral linked to wars between competing drug cartels. A
presidential candidate of the ruling PRI party was assassinated in
Tijuana in March 1994.

The city, home to the busiest border crossing on Earth, is one of the
main ports of entry for drugs heading into the United States.

Police said they have no suspects, but three suspicious-looking cars
were seized in two nearby neighborhoods. One of the cars had been
reported stolen in Chula Vista, Calif.

In recent months, officers under de la Torre's command have been
conducting a crackdown on undocumented-immigrant smugglers and
small-time drug users and pushers - particularly in the Zona Norte, an
area near the border known for prostitution, drugs and other criminal
activity.

De la Torre was gunned down on the same expressway, Via Rapida, where
one of his predecessors as municipal chief, Federico Benitez Lopez,
was murdered in 1994 in a similar fashion.

Rising anxiety over the escalating violence in Baja California has
even caught the attention of Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo, who
had dispatched the nation's attorney general and other top federal
officials to Baja for meetings this week on the crisis.

Baja California Gov. Alejandro Gonzalez Alcocer said the killing may
be in retaliation for the Friday speech by Zedillo, in which he warned
that he plans to root out criminals from Baja California.

A Catholic nun who was a close friend of de la Torre said he may have
had a premonition that he was facing death.

Sister Antonia Brenner, who was considered a surrogate mother by de la
Torre, said he told her Saturday, "Mother, if I live through this job,
you and I are going to change things for police throughout the whole
state of Baja (California)."

Brenner said, "I prayed for him Saturday night after he said those
things. He never told me he feared anything. He was my son."

De la Torre normally was protected by bodyguards except on Sunday,
which he reserved as a day for his family, officials said.