Police, soldiers swarm Mexico's Acapulco, killings continue
ACAPULCO, Mexico (AP) — Along with beach towels or sandals, there's a new popular beach accessory that says a lot about the violence gripping this once-glamorous resort: a small black leather tote hanging from the neck or shoulders of some men.
"When I saw you guys standing outside my office, I almost went for my bag," said one businessman who lives in terror after getting death threats and extortion demands by criminal gangs at his office four blocks from the water.
In the hillside slums that ring the city, a 15-year-old girl's body was found chopped into pieces and wrapped in a blanket, her severed head in a bucket nearby with a hand-lettered sign from a drug gang.
The upsurge in killings has made Acapulco one of Mexico's most violent places, scaring away what international tourism remained and recently prompting the U.S. government to bar its employees from traveling here for any reason.
In response, Mexico has lined the city's coastal boulevard with heavily armed police and soldiers, turning Acapulco into a high-profile test case for a security strategy that the government has used elsewhere:
Today it's almost easier to find a truck full of soldiers, a federal policeman or a gaggle of local tourist cops than it is to find a taxi along the "costera," the seaside boulevard that runs through the hotel zone.
Police marked spent shell casings with cut-off plastic soda bottles, but there was no sign of any in-depth investigation.
A so-called Oxxo — local slang for a drug retail house, borrowed from the name of a ubiquitous convenience store chain — can do an estimated 150,000 pesos ($8,100) in business in a single night.
The April 24 shootout came just after mysterious text messages circulated among city residents warning of a bloody weekend, prompting many to stay off the streets and keep their kids home from school.
State authorities initially described it as a direct attack on police installations, but as more information emerged it seems to have resulted from an attempt by unknown attackers to rob a drug gang payroll of about 50 bundles of cash, each containing thousands of pesos.
"First they send text messages," Martinez said.