By Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times –
MEXICO CITY — Gunmen killed eight taxi drivers Tuesday as they waited for fares on a busy street in the northern Mexico city of Guadalupe, reports from the area said.
In two attacks within miles and minutes of each other, the gunmen opened fire at one taxi stand, killing five drivers, then proceeded to another stand and shot three more to death.
The early-afternoon shootings also injured two people, one of them reported to be a child.
Guadalupe is essentially a suburb of Monterrey, Mexico’s third-largest and wealthiest city, which has suffered intense drug-war violence in the last couple of years.
Taxi drivers often serve as halcones, lookouts for drug gangs and other criminal groups, and frequently those drivers are killed by rivals.
On its website, the Milenio news group described the Guadalupe victims as “pirate” taxi drivers, meaning they may not have been operating with standard licenses or permits.
