Slain officer call lured police to site, mayor says

Terrorism, similar to that found in the Middle East, has taken root in North America's most violent city. Drug cartels orchestrated a Thursday car bombing that lured police to a fabricated homicide call at a busy downtown intersection. A car exploded, killing three people and injuring seven others. Rigged in the car was Composition 4, or C-4, a plastic explosive often used by the military, Juárez Mayor José Reyes Ferriz said. He said federal officials found a detonation device with batteries inside another car. Initial reports said a city police officer was killed, too, but Reyes Ferriz said the man was not an agent and was there to serve as a trap for law enforcement. They did not release his name. Officers were lured into the deadly trap Thursday night when they thought they were responding to a homicide, Ferriz said. Officers were dispatched thinking a city police officer was slain on the busy 16 de Septiembre Avenue. Reporters also traveled to the scene thinking it was an attack on an officer. Police and paramedics arrived at the scene and noticed that the man posing as a police officer was still alive. Other officers became suspicious when they noticed that the man was not wearing a badge and that his belt was different than the official police uniform. They proceeded to treat the area as a crime scene. Three rescue workers began to treat the decoy. "They were working on him ... about four meters from the car. Then, additional federal police officers came and the car then exploded," Reyes Ferriz said...more