Gunmen kill police chief in Mexico

PIEDRAS NEGRAS, Mexico (AP) — Gunmen ambushed and killed the police chief of Piedras Negras, across the border from Eagle Pass, Texas, on Saturday.

Assailants wielding AK-47 rifles opened fire on retired Mexican army Col. Arturo Navarro as he drove home, Coahuila state investigators said in a statement.

Navarro took over as police chief April 7 and soon after fired three high-ranking officers as part of a departmental purge.

On Tuesday, some 70 officers walked off the job to demand Navarro’s resignation. They complained that his leadership left them fearful of reprisal attacks from gangs.

In appointing Navarro, the Piedras Negras government was following the lead of President Felipe Calderon, who has relied heavily on the military in his fight against drug cartels. Calderon has acknowledged that corruption is pervasive among Mexican police at all levels.

Mexico’s drug violence has claimed more than 10,700 lives since 2006, when Calderon launched his anti-drug campaign. Some 45,000 soldiers have been deployed to drug-plagued areas.

Also Saturday, the federal Public Safety Department announced the capture of a purported cartel hit man suspected in the abduction of American anti-kidnapping expert Felix Batista. Batista was kidnapped in Coahuila state Dec. 10 and has not been heard from since.

German Torres, 29, was arrested Friday in the Gulf state of Veracruz, the department said in a statement. Torres is allegedly a founding member of the Zetas, a group of assassins for the Gulf cartel, who supervised training operations, kidnappings and killings.

Meanwhile, police in Guatemala seized more than 500 grenades, anti-personnel mines, machine guns, 770 pounds of cocaine and two armored cars at a warehouse where five anti-drug agents were killed in a shootout Friday.