Mexicali Official Slain in Ambush

SAN DIEGO — The director of the Mexicali Municipal Jail was gunned down outside his home Tuesday morning by two assailants, the latest in a rash of slayings of public safety officials in Baja California.

Eduardo Villalobos, 41, died at a hospital after being shot four times, once in the head, state police officials said. Villalobos formerly was head of the state attorney general’s organized crime unit.

There were no immediate suspects, state attorney general’s spokesman Moises Uribe said in Mexicali.

Villalobos’ killing came three days after the ambush-style slaying of the Rosarito police chief, who also was attacked outside his home as he was heading to work.

In January, two state police officers were killed in Tijuana. Last year, the top state law enforcement official in Mexicali, Humberto Armenta, was fatally shot outside his home.

Two suspects linked to narcotics traffickers were arrested in that case, Uribe said.

Villalobos, appointed in December, oversaw 3,648 inmates at the sprawling jail complex in the center of this fast-growing city across the border from Calexico, Calif.

The assailants were hiding in an abandoned Ford Aerostar van outside Villalobos’ house and opened fire as he started his Jeep Cherokee, Uribe said. The men jumped into a Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck driven by a third suspect and fled. The truck had been reported stolen from Yuma, Ariz., officials said.

Mexican border states are in the midst of a crime wave stemming in part from drug cartels’ battle for control of major trafficking corridors into the U.S.

The surge in violence prompted the U.S. State Department in January to advise caution when visiting Mexican border states. The advisory was extended in April.