Ciudad Juarez – An investigator with the Chihuahua state Attorney General's Office and her 5-year-old daughter were gunned down outside their house in Chihuahua city on Tuesday, Mexican officials said.
Brenda Carrilla and her daughter were leaving the house when a group of gunmen traveling in at least two vehicles opened fire on them.
Carrilla was killed instantly and the little girl died while being transported to a clinic, the AG's office said.
The investigator's husband was inside the house and was not hurt.
Carrilla was assigned to the homicide division, AG's office spokesman Carlos Gonzalez said.
One of the drug cartels that operate in Chihuahua left a message about a week ago on a street in Chihuahua city, the state capital, threatening to kill a state law enforcement agent every day because certain commanders were allegedly supporting a rival cartel.
The attacks against state law enforcement agents have not ceased since then, leaving three dead and at least five others wounded.
About 30 agents gathered Tuesday outside the AG's office to demand to that the commanders whose names appeared in the message resign.
Chihuahua, Mexico's largest state, has registered more than 8,500 deaths blamed on drug-related violence in the past four years.
A total of 15,270 people died in drug-related violence in Mexico last year, and more than 35,000 people have died since President Felipe Calderon declared war on the country's cartels shortly after taking office in December 2006.
Calderon has deployed tens of thousands of soldiers and Federal Police officers across the country to combat drug cartels and other criminal organizations.
The anti-drug operation, however, has failed to put a dent in the violence due, according to experts, to drug cartels' ability to buy off the police and even high-ranking officials.
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