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ZAPATA COUNTY
SOUTHEAST TEXAS
Well-known scout
Six die in deadly chase
Couple arrested for smuggling four immigrants By CÉSAR G. RODRIGUEZ LAREDO MORNING TIMES
A couple was recently arrested for smuggling people in Zapata County, according to federal court records. One suspect identified as
Jaime Javier Buentello, of Zapata, has had prior runins with U.S. Border Patrol, according to reports. “Buentello … has been documented as a well-known scout, foot guide, driver who mainly operates in Zapata
County, Texas,” states the criminal complaint filed Sept. 18. “(Buentello) has been apprehended by Border Patrol agents in previous occasions for smuggling and scouting. He had freely admitted that
he is an associate in the San Ygnacio (human smuggling organization, drug trafficking organization).” Buentello and Ariana Jasmine Sandoval were
See SCOUT PAGE 10A
SUV crammed with immigrants was running from the police By ST. JOHN BARNED-SMITH HOUSTON CHRONICLE
MEXICO
A KILLING GOES IGNORED
EDNA — Brian Miska, the owner of an auto service station in this normally quiet town southwest of Houston, awoke early Thursday morning to the cacophony of emergency sirens, hounds baying and helicopters flying overhead. His house is only about half a mile from a grisly scene where a SUV, crammed with immigrants and running from police, had crashed, killing six of the vehicle’s 14 passengers. “They’ve had chases all the time,” said Miska later Thursday, leaning against a pickup truck in the lot by his shop, Nagel’s Service Station. The horrific crash on U.S. Highway 59 near
See CHASE PAGE 10A
TOUR OF US
Photo by Jin Lee | AP Photo by Marco Ugarte | AP
In this Aug. 8 photo, Afrodita Mondragon, mother of slain college student Julio Cesar Mondragon, sits on her son’s bed with his portrait in San Miguel Tecomatlan, a rural town in the hills of Mexico state. Afrodita likes to look at her son’s Facebook profile, though she is careful not to land on the photos of a skull when she searches his name.
Others died in hours that 43 students vanished By MARIA VERZA ASSOCIATED PRESS
SAN MIGUEL TECOMATLAN, Mexico — Unlike the families of the 43 students who disappeared a year ago, Julio Cesar Mondragon’s loved ones were left with a body to bury. But there is little comfort in that, because Mondragon’s corpse bore witness to the horror of his final moments. His autopsy showed several skull fractures, internal bleeding and other injuries consistent with torture. His face had been flayed, a tactic often used by the drug cartels to incite terror. Photos of his bloody skull were uploaded to the Internet. International attention has been focused on the 43 students who vanished a year ago Saturday, but six others died at the hands of police in
those hours, including Mondragon, a 22-year-old father of girl who is now 1 year old. According to an independent group of experts, the disappearances and the killings were the result of a long, coordinated attack against students from the Raul Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School of Ayotzinapa who had come to the southern city of Iguala to commandeer buses for a protest. But the events of last Sept. 26 were far from isolated. Some 25,000 people have been reported missing in Mexico since 2007, and hundreds from the Iguala area in the last year alone. The disappearance of the students has drawn attention to others who have been lost, as well as brutal drug cartels, official corruption, government indifference and languishing legal cases.
According to Mexico’s former attorney general, the 43 disappeared in an attack by police and the Guerreros Unidos drug gang because they were mistaken for rival gang members. The attorney general said last November they were killed and burned to ash in a giant pyre in the nearby Cocula garbage dump. The independent experts assembled by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights took apart that version earlier this month, saying authorities knew who the students were from the minute they headed for Iguala, and at the very least did nothing to stop the attacks. They say the funeral pyre simply didn’t happen, and suggest the attack occurred because students unknowingly hijacked a bus carrying illegal drugs or money. Iguala is known as a transit hub for
heroin going to the United States. Families say the judicial neglect extends to Mondragon and five others killed that night. His fellow students Daniel Solis and Julio Cesar Ramirez, were shot dead at close range. Driver Victor Manuel Lugo Ortiz and David Jose Garcia Evangelista, 15, died when police fired at a soccer team bus. Blanca Montiel, 40, was killed by stray gunfire while riding in a taxi. Mondragon had been on one of the buses when it was attacked, then later showed up at a press conference the students called at 12:30 a.m. amid the mayhem. He fled when police opened fire. Witnesses said shortly after they last saw him, they heard screams from someone they
Pope Francis shakes hands with a New York Police Department officer while visiting the 9/11 Memorial plaza, Friday, in New York.
Pope decries damage to environment Francis visits ground zero in NY By NICOLE WINFIELD AND JENNIFER PELTZ ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK — In a day of both forceful words and eloquent silence, Pope Francis stood before the United Nations on Friday to decry the destruction of the environment through the “selfish and boundless thirst” for profit, then paid tribute to the victims of 9/11 with a prayer service at ground zero. Francis’ agenda for his first full day in New York was packed with contrasts befitting a head of state dubbed the “slum pope” for his devotion to the poor. With a schedule expected to take him from the
See MEXICO PAGE 11A See POPE PAGE 11A