POLICE CHIEF, 3 OFFICERS DIE IN AMBUSH

JUAREZ -- The head of the Juarez police department and three officers
were killed in an ambush Tuesday on a day when protesters, claiming
abuses by the Mexican army, blocked traffic to the international
bridges into El Paso.

Police operations director Sacramento Perez Serrano, 49, was being
escorted by the officers when the four-door police pickup they were
riding in was riddled with gunfire in the upscale Zona Dorada (Golden
Zone) area of the city about 5 p.m.

Perez and the three officers died in the attack near Paseo de La
Victoria and Ejercito Nacional boulevards.

"They were on their way to the Babicora (police) station when they
were ambushed by an armed commando," said Jaime Torres, city spokesman.

"They didn't have a chance to defend themselves. They died in the
patrol unit."

Police were on "red alert" late Tuesday as an extensive search,
including federal agents and soldiers, continued for the killers,
officials said.

Perez, a Mexican army captain who had been a police official in
Puebla, was named police director last July by city public safety
secretary Roberto Orduna Cruz.

The ambush was part of an unrelenting wave of violence in the Juarez
area that has left more 1,800 dead since January 2008.

On Monday, there were a dozen homicides, including two unidentified
men who were found decapitated, reportedly with a note referring to
them as extortionists.

At midday Tuesday, dozens of wo men, children and taxi drivers, who
claim a fellow driver was beaten by soldiers, blocked traffic in
Juarez heading to the Bridge of the Americas, the Paso del Norte
Bridge and the Fabens-Caseta crossing to protest abuses they claim
were committed by the army. The blockade lasted about an hour.

"Get out of Juarez, soldiers" and "Crooks in green uniforms" stated
signs by protesters aimed at the estimated 2,000 troops deployed to
fight crime in Juarez last year.

Juarez city officials issued a statement saying that they support
freedom of speech but that blocking bridges does more harm than good.
There were no reported problems on the U.S. side of the bridges,
though officers said they were on alert after learning protests would
take place. By 3 p.m., traffic was back to normal.

"We were open the whole time," said Roger Maier, spokesman for the El
Paso sector of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. "There was just no
traffic to process because it was stopped in Mexico."

Similar blockades took place on bridges in the border cities of Nuevo
Laredo and Reynosa and other protests in the northern Mexican city of
Monterrey and the state of Veracruz. It was unclear who was behind the
demonstrations.

Mexican government officials claim that drug cartels organized
protests in Monterrey earlier this month to undermine the nationwide
crackdown on drug traffickers.

An hour after the protest ended, soldiers were randomly checking for
contraband in vehicles headed to the United States on Avenida Juarez
at the foot of the Paso del Norte Bridge in downtown Juarez.

"The protests should not involve the bridges because it affects us
all," said Manuel Jimenez, an employee of a Juarez pharmacy catering
to U.S. customers.

"They (soldiers) don't have to be doing that job. The job to check
cars should be done by you (U.S.) guys on the other side," Jimenez
said after rolling his eyes when asked what he thought about the
military's efforts. "I hope it (violence) ends soon, but I don't know."