Gunmen ambushed the director of Sonora’s state police Sunday night killing him with a barrage of gunfire as well as grenades as he and other law enforcement officials entered their hotel in central Nogales.
Juan Manuel Pavón Félix died a short time later in a local hospital, a news release from the Sonora Attorney General's Office.
Pavón was in Tucson this past week for an event hosted by the U.S. Marshals to honor Mexican law enforcement who had helped arrest U.S. fugitives in Mexico.
The assassination occurred at 8:30 p.m. Sunday at the Marqués de Cima hotel, located about two and a half miles south of the border off of Avenida Alvaro Obregon, which goes north-south from the downtown Dennis DeConcini port of entry and south out of the city.
Pavón was walking into the hotel along with other law enforcement when gunmen in the upper part of the building opened fire and launched grenades, the release said. Pavón was still alive when he was taken to a local hospital but died a few minutes later.
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Other agents were wounded in the attack and taken to the hospital for treatment.
State police have been in Nogales for the past two months working in a special operation along with city and federal police to combat drug cartels-fueled violence, which has created unprecedented violence in the border city.
There have been some 76 homicides registered in Nogales through September, surpassing the 2007 total of 52 and more than doubling the 2006 total of 35. Most of killing has been attributed to drug cartel-fueled violence.
On Oct. 23, state police shot and killed 10 gunmen during a rolling gunbattle that went past supermarkets and malls and down side streets before ending in an industrial park.
Pavón and other law enforcement from out of town were staying in the hotel. Most of them were inside their rooms when the attack occurred, the attorney general press release said.
U.S. officials did not close the Dennis Deconcini port of entry in downtown Nogales but Mexican officials stopped allowing traffic from the U.S. into Mexico for about two hours, said Brian Levin, Customs and Border Protection spokesman. Traffic into the U.S. never stopped, but it was delayed for a while, Levin said.
Pávon, who was married with two children, took over as chief of the state police on March 6, 2007, according to El Imparcial newspaper in Sonora.
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