Will Matamoros Massacre Create Wave of Violence?

Mexican authorities are concerned the massacre of six federal prison workers in Matamoros this week will prompt another wave of violence.

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This comes after Thursday’s massacre of six prison workers, all shot execution style. Federal officers say they’re interviewing fifteen witnesses.

In a news conference in Matamoros, federal prosecutor Marco Antonio Ramirez said the victims left their jobs early Thursday in three separate cars, among a group of employees getting off their 24-hour shift.

But, Ramirez said, a group of assassins, dressed all in black, set up a roadblock on the dirt road leading from the prison, stopping only the cars of the victims and allowing others to pass. It was unclear why the six were targeted.

They worked as a computer systems technician, two electrical technicians, a guard commander and two drivers.

University of Texas at Brownsville professor Anthony Knopp teaches a course on border studies, and part of that includes gang retaliation.

He says this region of the border had been controlled by the Gulf Cartel.

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The UTB professor says Mexican drug lords are very territorial. He says if Cardenas is in fact behind the whole thing, he’s most likely telling Caro Quintero, “I still have control”.

Federal authorities transferred Caro Quintero to crack down on inmates running drug trafficking rings from inside the Mexican prison system.

Knopp says as Mexican authorities try to clean up their prisons, their mess could start plaguing our border.

“When you’re sending a drug king pin to the border, this is where the drug action takes place so it’s very disturbing to the people living up here.”

The prison employees were kidnapped, handcuffed, blindfolded and then shot to death, Ramirez said. Four showed signs of torture, and all were left dumped in a white sport utility vehicle parked across the road from the prison, one of the country’s three top federal facilities.

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