1000s protest drug violence in Mexico after police director killed

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Thousands of white-clad people marched silently Sunday to protest a surge of drug-related violence in a Mexican city across from Texas where the No. 2 police officer was shot dead. The crowd of several thousand students, church leaders, businessmen and politicians walked for about four miles (six kilometers) across Ciudad Juarez to a park near a border crossing, breaking the silence in a burst of speeches, dancing and singing. More than 200 people have been killed so far this year in Ciudad Juarez. The city of 1.3 million across the border from El Paso, Texas, is home base for the powerful Juarez drug cartel. The assassination of police director Juan Antonio Roman Garcia on Saturday came despite the deployment of more than 2,500 soldiers and federal police to the city and surrounding Chihuahua state in March.