MONTERREY, Nuevo León — Faking death saved the life of a kidnapped former Mexican cop by cartel gunmen. Captors took the woman from her home to an open field where they assaulted and shot her five times over a drug deal that went wrong.
Emergency medical personnel found former Escobedo Police Officer Nohemi Flores Bautista along the kilometer 26 marker on the highway connecting Monterrey to Nuevo Laredo. The woman was rushed to a local hospital where she remains in serious condition. The gunmen shot the woman three times in her back and twice in her arm.
While the former police officer was treated at the hospital, two cartel men and a female member wearing black went to the victim’s home and set fire to the building in the San Miguel neighborhood. Scared neighbors stood by as the gunmen made their escape.
Flores denies that the attempted murder and arson are linked to an ongoing drug dispute, however, investigators with the Nuevo León Attorney General’s Office suspect that her relative’s criminal activity and her suspected involvement led to the violence.
The Monterrey area is seeing a spike in violence as members of the Vieja Escuela Z and their rivals, Cartel Del Noreste (CDN), continue to carry out brazen attacks and executions. Breitbart Texas reported on some of the cases where cartel gunmen left behind vehicles with body parts and messages inside.
Editor’s Note: Breitbart Texas traveled to the Mexican States of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Nuevo León to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities. The writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that operate in those areas including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and in their original Spanish. This article was written by Nuevo León’s Tony Aranda.