ANTI-DRUG MEXICAN JOURNALIST GUNNED DOWN

MEXICO CITY - Crusading journalist Luis Mario Garcia spent most days and
many nights digging into the perilous underworld of drug lords and corrupt
police. And that almost certainly got him killed, his colleagues say.

An unknown assailant stuck a gun in Mr. Garcia's face late Thursday night
and fired five times, the writer's boss said Friday. "WHO DID IT?" read the
banner headline in Friday's la tarde newspaper. "He was one of my best
reporters," publisher Miguel Rocha Valencia said. "He didn't just type up
what was on press releases. He went into the streets and found news."

Dozens of Mexican reporters have been attacked or killed in recent years.
Mr. Garcia, 42, married with six children, was the first to be killed in
1998.

Mr. Garcia was reportedly shot shortly after a late meeting with some of
his federal police sources. Colleagues who rushed to the scene said it
appeared he had five bullet wounds in the face and three or four in the
torso.

Mexico City's Reforma newspaper reported Friday that witnesses said eight
police agents surrounded Mr. Garcia on Thursday night and roughed him up
before one of them drew a gun and killed the journalist.

Mexican authorities had no comment on the case Friday, and Mr. Rocha said
he's not sure which version of the story to believe. Some witnesses say a
sole assassin killed Mr. Garcia. Others put the number at four or more, Mr.
Rocha said.

"It's not our job to accuse anyone. Let the authorities investigate," he said.

As of late Friday afternoon, no investigators had bothered to call la tarde
or stop by and look through the newspaper's archives, Mr. Rocha said.

"Our files are open," he said. "But no one has called." The newspaper,
whose name means "afternoon" in Spanish, has a circulation of about 4,500.
One of about 20 in Mexico City, la tarde was founded March 23, 1994, the
same day that ruling party presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio was
gunned down in Tijuana.

Its former publisher, Simon Yamin Sesin, also headed a newspaper called
Ocho Columnas, which means "eight columns" in Toluca, a city about 45 miles
west of Mexico City. Mr. Yamin was slain in May in a still-unresolved case.
Two suspects have been identified but not arrested, Mr. Rocha said.

Mr. Garcia had been with the newspaper for less than two years. One of his
most explosive stories, published in December, accused Mexico City's then
newly appointed judicial police chief, Jesus Carrola Gutierrez, of being
paid off by Tijuana's notorious Arellano Felix drug gang. Mr. Carrola
denied any drug ties but resigned under fire shortly afterward.

Another report by Mr. Garcia said the Arellano Felix gang had begun to
infiltrate the upper reaches of law enforcement agencies in Mexico City,
well out of its traditional Pacific Coast territory. His newspaper
announced that story with a huge headline on Page 1: "Here Come the
Arellano Felixes!"

Still another story said that Mexican authorities were selling prosecutors'
jobs to the highest bidders and that some federal attorney general's
officials had received illegal gifts: baskets packed with fruit and wads of
cash.

After such stories appeared, Mr. Rocha said Mr. Garcia received threats.
But he was used to that, having endured not only intimidation but also an
assassination attempt last year. Gunmen chased him down and fired at his
car as he and one of his sons were driving along a highway in northern
Sonora state.

One bullet struck the writer in the buttocks. Another hit his son in the
head. Their car crashed and the assailants left, apparently thinking their
target was dead. But the two survived, and Mr. Garcia immediately went back
to writing about drug trafficking and police corruption.

On Tuesday, Mr. Rocha said, an unidentified police commander with a foreign
last name and an Army captain met with Mr. Garcia for four hours, insisting
that he tell them where he was getting his information.

He reportedly told them, "From your own personnel" and refused to say
anything else about his sources.

"His sources were very confidential," Mr. Rocha said. "When he'd write a
story, I'd ask, 'Can you back this up?' and he'd say, 'Yes, this is true
for this reason and that reason.' "

Even in death, Mr. Garcia managed to get in a final word. In his last story
published Friday, he said he had discovered a plaza in Mexico City where
hundreds of federal agents gather each day, doing absolutely nothing as
taxpayers foot the bill for their salaries and drug traffickers run free.

Motorists, he wrote, are amazed to see "people armed with automatic pistols
playing as if it were recess time for some public school."

(c) 1998 The Dallas Morning News