This is the second US military personnel in the past few months that has been tied up in cartel related violence from Juarez:
A U.S. serviceman was among six victims of an early morning shooting at a Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, strip club Wednesday, officials said.Unidentified gunmen entered the Amadeus club in the border city across from El Paso, Texas, just after midnight and fatally shot six men, Chihuahua state attorney general’s office spokesman Arturo Sandoval said.
An additional person was injured, he said.
Two of the victims were identified as employees of the strip club, a waiter and a security guard, the spokesman said.
Another was identified as an American citizen and member of the U.S. Air Force, Sandoval said.
A statement from Holloman Air Force Base, near Alamogordo, New Mexico, confirmed that the airman was based there, and identified him as Staff Sgt. David Booher, 26.
The gunmen appeared to have targeted the victims, Sandoval said.
“Everything indicates that these people were looking for these men,” he said.
Investigators recovered more than 30 shells from the scene.
Because of drug-related violence, particularly in border cities, Juarez is considered off-limits for the U.S. military. At Fort Bliss in El Paso, for instance, a memorandum prohibits its soldiers from traveling into the Mexican state of Chihuahua, where Ciudad Juarez is located.
More than 2,000 killings have been recorded in Juarez this year. [CNN]
I can remember just 9 years ago being able to travel down to Juarez from Ft. Bliss and have a good time down there. Now there is absolutely no way I would ever go over there. I know a number of locals who used to live down there and commuted to Ft. Bliss to work. Over the past few years they moved from Juarez and now live full time in El Paso because of the violence. It is just incredible how quickly the violence has gotten out of control over there and how the Mexican government has been nearly impotent to stop it.
It is also troubling to see a Ft. Bliss soldier involved in a cartel sponsored hit and now an Air Force Sergeant murdered in a targeted cartel hit.
