Nine members of a faith-based community of American expatriates living in Mexico were shot to death on November 4 as they were driving in a convoy of three SUVs near the Sonora-Chihuahua border in Mexico.
The attack is believed to have been waged by members of one of Mexico’s cartels, who may have mistaken the convoy of SUVs as belonging to a rival cartel. However this does not explain why the gunmen killed one woman in cold blood after she hid her baby in the back seat and exited the vehicle with her hands up to get the gunmen to stop shooting.
CBS News reported that a member of the group was killed by a cartel 10 years ago. The network cited one source who shared a theory that the group was intentionally targeted, because the ambush was not short and was spread out for miles.
Fox News cited a statement from Alfonso Durazo, Mexico’s top security official, who said that police first found a burned-out Chevy Tahoe with five people. About 11 miles up the mountainous dirt road, they found a Suburban with a dead woman and two dead children inside. And farther on, they found a second Suburban and, about 15 yards away, the body of another woman.
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The victims included three women and six children. All were members of the extended LeBaron family, an American clan who have lived in the community in the northern part of Mexico for decades.
Britain’s Daily Mail published a history of the LeBaron family, which the victims were part of. Though widely described in the press as being “Mormon,” the group is actually part of an offshoot of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) that broke away from the parent church after it abandoned the practice of polygamy and adopted a policy of excommunicating members who resisted this policy.
In response to the ruthless killings, President Trump tweeted on November 5: “If Mexico needs or requests help in cleaning out these monsters, the United States stands ready, willing & able to get involved and do the job quickly and effectively.”
Trump continued: “The cartels have become so large and powerful that you sometimes need an army to defeat an army! This is the time for Mexico, with the help of the United States, to wage WAR on the drug cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth.”
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said he would accept “all necessary cooperation” to get justice for the victims, all of whom lived on the Mexican side but had dual nationality.
But López Obrador, who has declared an end to Mexico’s “drug wars,” said he was not looking for a new one.
“We don’t agree [with Trump] on that,” he told a news conference. “War is synonymous with irrationality.”
Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) took issue with López Obrador’s statement, and compared the Mexican president’s reaction to heads of state appeasing or refusing to confront dictators or terrorist groups.
“They take it as a sign of weakness and they prey upon the innocent,” he said.
Photo: AP Images
Warren Mass has served The New American since its launch in 1985 in several capacities, including marketing, editing, and writing. Since retiring from the staff several years ago, he has been a regular contributor to the magazine. Warren writes from Texas and can be reached at [email protected].
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