The father of a woman slain along with eight others, including four of her children, condemned the Mexican drug cartel for using violence to incite fear in the country.
“There is no mistake here,” Adrián LeBaron said from the site where his daughter and grandchildren were gunned down in Mexico. “Here they killed innocent people to teach fear.” LeBaron’s daughter Rhonita Maria Miller, 31, was shot and killed along with two other mothers, Christina Marie Langford Johnson, 31, and Dawna Ray Langford, 43, and six children, in a suspected cartel-related attack in Bavispe on Monday.
Three SUVs carrying the families were attacked were ambushed by rifle-wielding gunmen on Monday miles apart from each other. Miller was said to be traveling to Arizona to pick up her husband when the gunmen opened fire. The attackers then torched the SUV that was being driven by Miller with her body and those of her children still inside. Eight children were able to escape the violent attack but many of them were injured. They were later transferred to Phoenix for medical care.
LeBaron and his family, who are American nationals, belong to a Mormon offshoot based in northern Mexico. LeBaron had previously experienced tragedy at the hands of the cartel in 2009 when his nephew, 16-year-old Eric LeBaron, was kidnapped. The cartel demanded a $1 million ransom, which the family refused to pay. Eric was later released, but months later his brother, Benjamin LeBaron, and brother-in-law, Luis Widmar Stubbs, were both kidnapped and later found dead in a cemetery. Notorious hitman for the Juarez cartel Jose Rodolfo Escajeda was later captured and charged with the murders.
“It is not an attack against our community, what we have here is a protest,” LeBaron said. “They are making a statement and I do not know towards who. However, they killed my daughter with that purpose … There is an incredible evil here. I do not know what you call this. If they are using us to make a statement. I do not know who it’s for. One cartel towards another.”
President Trump offered to “wage WAR” on the Mexican drug cartels in response to the deadly attack but was rebuked by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador who affirmed his policy that “hugs, not bullets” were the way to defeat the violent cartels. “It’s not in agreement with our convictions,” he said. “The worst thing is war.”
