After Threats, Juárez Mayor in El Paso

Police are investigating threats against Juárez Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz, who moved his family to El Paso for safety, El Paso police Detective Carlos Carrillo said Monday.

“We received information that the Juárez mayor lives in El Paso, and that possibly they were going to come to El Paso to get him,” Carrillo said. “He has not asked us for our help, but it’s our duty to protect any resident of our city who may be under threat.”

Juárez police said written threats against Reyes Ferriz and his family were left in different parts of Juárez after the police chief, Roberto Orduña Cruz, resigned Friday. The threats were written on the kind of banners and posters that the Juárez drug cartel has used to send messages to police and others.

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Both the Juárez mayor and Chihuahua governor belong to the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

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Juárez city official Guillermo Dowell said the violence in Juárez and Chihuahua state is comparable to what occurred in Ireland and Iraq, “where people were killed not because of what they did or failed to do, but to plant terror in a city and its authorities.”

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