Drug lords go after Mexican police officers

On May 8, Edgar Millan Gomez, who had taken over as acting federal police chief, just 10 weeks previously, was shot by a lone gunman outside his Mexico City apartment. Police blamed the Sinaloa cartel and said a police officer was among the suspects arrested.

The U.S. Embassy in the capital flew its flag at half-staff. "Mexico has lost another hero," Ambassador Tony Garza said in a statement. "Mexico has lost too many heroes in the fight against criminals and drug cartels."

Mexican government institutions didn't lower their flags, but held elaborate funerals.

In Ciudad Juarez, police have been given assault rifles -they used to just carry pistols -but also are instructed not to patrol streets alone. More than 100 of the city's 1,700-member force have resigned or retired since January.

Soldiers are also in the cartels' sights. The Zetas, an infamous group of soldiers-turned-drug hit men, strung banners above highways with slogans such as "The Zetas want you -we offer good salaries to soldiers," and taunts about low army pay.

The conflict has become a battle for the loyalty of police and civilians.

"Juarez Needs You! Join up and become part of the city police," say enormous city billboards. The jobs offer salaries about three times higher than those offered by the foreign-owned "maquiladora" factories that are the city's biggest industrial employer.

But police and soldiers keep deserting to the cartels, giving traffickers inside knowledge about tactics and surveillance.

And because of their history of corruption and abuse, police and soldiers run into suspicion as they patrol the border slums where traffickers throw children's parties, hand out cell phones and employ taxi drivers and youths as lookouts.

A Mexican army captain leading about a dozen soldiers raiding a Ciudad Juarez slum gazed over a maze of alleys, shacks and, in the distance, El Paso, Texas, gleaming in the sun. He said the drug lords' spies are everywhere, tipping off their bosses to approaching troops.