By the Gun

At approximately 2:45 in the afternoon on June 9, two men were assassinated in a vehicle in the La Mesa section of Tijuana, approximately 12 miles east of downtown. Witnesses testified that the victims were in a red GMC pick-up with Baja plates, waiting at a traffic light among other vehicles. The assailants’ vehicle pulled alongside and opened fire with large-caliber automatic weapons. The suspects immediately fled.

Authorities quickly arrived and blocked the street in both directions for several hours. Two male victims were identified as Eduardo Morales Cristian Chavez, 30, and Juan Pablo Romero Ramos, 27 years of age. They were discovered dead in the truck with numerous bullet wounds. Municipal officers and crime-scene investigators located over 20 shell casings from rounds used primarily in Kalashnikov AKM, RPK, or AK-47 assault rifles.

In an interview after attending the crime scene, public security officer Leyzaola Julian Perez acknowledged that despite the "net" of police who had been deployed in the area in the past few months, the perpetrators of the attack had escaped.

A person who refused to be identified stated that he had been an acquaintance with one of the victims since childhood, and that it was apparent the victim had been associating with elements of the drug trade.

Police recognized the style of the assassinations as consistent with that of killers in the drug-trafficking trade. The bodies were taken to the morgue to undergo an official autopsy.