Shootouts and kidnappings, once isolated incidents among rival drug cartels, have become more frequent and public in Nogales, Sonora:
July 30 - Aug. 1
Twenty men — hooded and carrying guns — kidnap five men in the parking lot of Bar Reds, located in a heavily frequented area in front of the Nogales mall. Two days later, officials find two of the men wrapped in sheets and brown tape with messages taped to their bodies signed by the "Nuevos Zetas" and directed to the Sinaloan cartel. The other three men reappear later that day denying they were kidnapped. They say they had just been out partying. They do not press charges.
Aug. 16
In the early morning, at the Estrella Blanca bus stop in Nogales, three newer-model vehicles park, and three men wearing black with ski masks emerge with AK-47 machine guns. They open fire, killing two men and injuring two others. They hop into a car waiting for them and flee past the U.S. Consulate, located one block away, and out of town.
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Aug. 24
Gunmen open fire on three men at 2 p.m. in a neighborhood called Colonia Granja in Nogales, gravely injuring the three. A 17-year-old girl talking to the men is hit 10 times by bullets and transported to a Tucson hospital, where she dies. Another man injured in the shootout has his left arm amputated.
Sept. 12-13
Five shootouts take place in different parts of Nogales from Friday afternoon through early morning Saturday, leaving two dead and two injured. A man from Sinaloa is executed in front of a preschool in Colonia Los Alamos at 5:15 p.m. Another man is shot and killed at a taco stand at 1:18 a.m. on Avenida Obregon in downtown Nogales. And, in front of a popular supermarket in El Greco commercial area, gunmen open fire on a Nissan Maxima, injuring one man and frightening dozens of shoppers.
