SLAIN MEN MOURNED: DRUG WAR CLAIMS 1ST UTEP STUDENT

EL PASO -- Alejandro Ruiz Salazar became the first UTEP student to be
killed in the drug war in Mexico.

Ruiz, 19, was killed Sunday night in Juarez along with his friend
Jorge Pedro Gonzalez Quintero, 21, a former UTEP student.

University officials said they believe Ruiz is the first UTEP student
killed in Juarez in the drug war. Ruiz was also a U.S. citizen who
commuted from Juarez to El Paso.

"I've been apprehensive about something like this happening," said
Diana Natalicio, president of the University of Texas at El Paso.
"Somehow, even holding that kind of apprehension, it's always a shock
to hear it. My condolences go to his family members and friends."

Today, UTEP will fly its flag at half-staff in honor of the two
students killed in Juarez.

Ruiz and Gonzalez were boy scouts, assistants to pastors and aspiring
professionals -- not the typical targets in a gruesome drug war that
has claimed the lives of more than 5,200 people since 2008. Mexican
officials, including President Felipe Calderon, have said that most of
those killed in drug cartel attacks are gang members or involved in
the narco trade.

Gunmen chased down Ruiz and Gonzalez, who were in a gray Jeep
Cherokee, and shot at them on the highway that links Juarez and the
town of Villa Ahumada. Gonzalez appeared to be the driver and Ruiz,
the passenger. Both young men died at the scene of gunshot wounds.

Juarez Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz and the Mexican boy scouts association
president Jose Adolfo Lopez Sampson both said Tuesday they were sorry
about the killings of the two men.

"It pains us to lose these two young men, who were a model for Ciudad
Juarez -- men who served, worked and studied," Lopez Sampson said.

Ruiz had three brothers and one sister. Across the social networking
website Facebook, friends of the Ruiz siblings have been posting their
condolences since Sunday.

Four of the siblings attended or are now enrolled at UTEP. His
brother, Leonel Ruiz, was too upset to comment on the murder of his
brother.

"All I am going to tell you is he was my best friend," Leonel Ruiz
said.

Family members, who held his funeral Tuesday, said they did not know
the reason behind the attack. News reports said the two men were
coming from a boy scout camp before they were gunned down.

"They would not mess with anybody, ever," said Denisse Ruiz, Alejandro
Ruiz's sister who also attends UTEP.

Denisse Ruiz said her brother was very talkative and funny. He wore
his long, curly hair afro-style.

"He was a strong and dedicated boy," she said.

On the academic side, Ruiz was an aspiring nurse. He graduated in 2009
from Silva Magnet High School, which is selectively geared to students
who want to go into health fields.

Ruiz's friends said he earned good grades in his first year in
college. He also worked on campus as a work-study employee in the
Graduate School dean's office.

"The staff loved having him around," said Patricia Witherspoon, dean
of the graduate school. "He was a cheerful employee. E He seemed very
focused but also joyful about his work, about his major."

The drug war in Juarez had already affected Gonzalez, the other man
killed Sunday. He told a teacher at Burges High School, where he
graduated in 2006, that his brother was killed in 2008 after the
brother fought back when men tried to kidnap him.

"I remember telling him that it was up to his generation to put an end
to all the violence in Juarez," said Richard Bruns, now the
high-school counselor at Burges.

Gonzalez and Bruns continued to exchange e-mails after he graduated.
He told his former teacher that he was an honors student in
metallurgical and materials engineering at UTEP.

The last time Gonzalez communicated with Bruns, he told him he lived
and worked in Juarez and traveled every day to El Paso to go to UTEP.
University officials said he attended UTEP from fall 2006 to spring
2009. He did not graduate.

In an e-mail, Gonzalez told Bruns that he was an assistant pastor in
Juarez, and he wrote about being in love with his girlfriend.

The drug war has threatened higher education in both Mexico and the
United States.

In late March, two graduate students from the private and elite school
Tech de Monterrey were killed right outside campus. Mexican officials
initially said they were hit men. It wasn't until the mother of one of
them recognized the body of her son in the morgue that officials took
the claims back.

In late April, UTEP suspended and prohibited any university-related
travels to Mexico, citing a recall by UT System Chancellor Francisco
Cigarroa.

Natalicio said last week in a memo that university-sponsored travel in
Mexico would be prohibited, including day trips to Juarez.

"I think the purpose of that is to underscore that we consider Juarez,
unfortunately, to be off limits," Natalicio said. "If you have family
members there, it is understandable that people will continue to go.
It's very, very sad that life has changed there."