JUAREZ OFFICER GUNNED DOWN: ASSISTING OFFICER, CIVILIAN ARE WOUNDED

Border security concerns arose again Thursday morning when a Juarez traffic
officer was ambushed by a group of armed men near the U.S. border.

Roxana Rodriguez Monroy, 33, was shot and killed about 10:30 a.m. while she
was escorting a vehicle to a lot where vehicles involved in traffic
violations are kept, said Juarez city spokesman Jaime Torres.

She was riding a motorcycle near the intersection of Norzagaray Boulevard
and Plomo Street at the time, according to Chihuahua state news release.
That intersection is directly across from the El Paso Downtown neighborhood
of Chihuahuita.

After Monroy was shot, she called for help. Another traffic officer, Jose
Natividad Valdez, came to her aid but he, too, was shot, along with a
civilian, Torres said.

Valdez was taken to a Juarez hospital while Mexican police pursued the
gunmen, he said. Valdez is in critical condition, Torres said.

The condition and location of the civilian are not known.

Soon after the shooting, police found a van with bullet holes in it across
the border from the former Asarco smelter. The van might have been used and
abandoned in a ditch by the attackers, Torres said.

U.S. Border Patrol agents monitored the activity of the Mexican police as
they towed the truck out of the ditch and collected bullet casings.

Ramiro Cordero, a Border Patrol spokesman, said the agents had responded to
the sound of gunfire in the area.

"Immediately, as always, we took positions in order to ensure that nothing
came across that might harm or injure our citizens, and we immediately
contacted the other law enforcement agencies to let them know what was
going on," Cordero said.

Agents told police they had heard the gunshots near West Paisano Drive,
said Detective Mike Baranyay, a spokesman for the El Paso Police Department.

Baranyay said police found no signs that any of the shots had crossed the
border.

There have been several shootings in recent months in the Juarez colonias
near Downtown El Paso and the University of Texas at El Paso.

On June 29, a gunfight between Mexican police and a group of gunmen that
erupted near an S-Mart parking lot killed one Mexican federal police
officer and probably caused seven bullet pockmarks in the walls of El Paso
City Hall, according to the El Paso Police Department.

On Aug. 6, Irvin High School teacher James Patrick Barnes was shot in the
back on the balcony of his girlfriend's house in colonia Cazadores
Juarenses, which is across the border from UTEP.

On Aug. 21, another gunfight involving Mexican police broke out in the same
area.

Paisano Drive was shut down from Executive Center Boulevard to Santa Fe
Street for about 30 minutes that day to prevent people and vehicles from
being struck by stray bullets.

During the battle, an alleged gunman was killed and three Juarez police
officers were wounded.

Thirty-three transit and city police officers have been killed in Juarez
this year, Torres said.

More than 2,300 people have been slain in Juarez this year, according to an
El Paso Times tally.

By Thursday evening, at least six more people were killed in the city,
including two unidentified men found tied up and shot to death.

The men's heads had been covered with plastic bags wrapped with tape,
Chihuahua state police said. One man wore only boxer shorts while the other
wore a green jersey, possibly of the Mexican national soccer team, and a
pink mini-skirt.

In some drug-related murders, victims have been dressed in women's clothing
after death as a form of humiliation.

Times reporters Daniel Borunda and Aileen Flores contributed to this story.