Soldiers: Mexico beauty queen had gun in her hands
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| In this April 26, 2012 photo, Maria Susana Flores Gamez poses for a photo for a story about her upcoming participation in a beauty pageant in China, in Culiacan, Mexico. Flores, who was voted the 2012 Woman of Sinaloa in a beauty pageant in February, was killed in northern Mexico on Nov. 24, 2012 during a running gun battle between soldiers and the gang of drug traffickers she was traveling with. |
CULIACAN, Mexico
(AP) -- A Mexican beauty queen killed over the weekend in a shootout
between suspected drug traffickers and soldiers likely was being used
as a human shield, a federal official said Tuesday.
Maria
Susana Flores Gamez, crowned 2012 Woman of Sinaloa in February, came
out of the car first with a gun in her hands during the confrontation,
with the other gunmen hiding behind her, according to the official from
the attorney general's office.
He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.
The
official said he read the military report of Saturday's shootout in
Flores Gamez's hometown of Guamuchil in western Sinaloa state, home to
Mexico's most powerful cartel of the same name. The attorney general's
investigators are still trying to determine if the 20-year-old fired the
gun she was holding.
The report said she went down in a hail of gunfire. She was found dead near an assault rifle along with two others.
"They used the woman as a human shield," the official said.
The
slender, 5-foot-7-inch brunette had competed with seven other
contestants for the more prestigious state beauty contest, Miss Sinaloa,
but didn't win. Miss Sinaloa state winners compete for the Miss Mexico
title, whose holder represents the country in the international Miss
Universe pageant.
Mexico's Ximena Navarrete was crowned Miss Universe in 2010.
Local media outlets continue to misidentify Flores Gamez on Tuesday as Miss Sinaloa.
The
organizers of the Miss Sinaloa pageant issued a statement on the
pageant's Facebook page, seeking to make clear Flores Gamez was not
their queen.
The misidentification "damages the image and tranquility of our queens, their families and friends," the statement said.
Neither the state nor national pageants responded to requests for comment on Flores Gamez's death.
It
was at least the fourth documented case of a beauty queen or pageant
contestant becoming involved with Mexican drug traffickers, the theme of
the critically acclaimed 2011 movie "Miss Bala," or "Miss Bullet,"
Mexico's official submission to the Best Foreign Language Film category
of Academy Awards.
The film tells the story of
a young woman competing for Miss Baja California who becomes an
unwilling participant in a drug-running ring, finally getting arrested
for deeds she was forced into performing.
In
real life, top Sinaloa cartel drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman
married local beauty queen Emma Coronel, who later crossed into the
United States to give birth to twin girls in 2011.
In
2008, former Miss Sinaloa Laura Zuniga was stripped of her crown in the
Hispanoamerican Queen pageant after she was detained that year on
suspicion of drug and weapons violations. She was later released without
charges.
In 2011, a Colombian former model
and pageant contestant was detained along with Jose Jorge Balderas, an
accused drug trafficker and suspect in the 2010 bar shooting of Salvador
Cabanas, a former star for Paraguay's national football team and
Mexico's Club America. She was also later released.
"A
lot of young women are attracted by the false riches of the drug gangs.
They offer the fantasy of a life of riches without much work," said
Judith del Rincon, a women's rights activist and former Sinaloa
legislator. "A lot of beauty queens wind up as girlfriends of some
narco."
Del Rincon added that the involvement
of drug lords with beauty queens dates back at least to the heyday of
the Tijuana-based Arellano Felix drug gang in the 1990s.
Sinaloa
state prosecutor Marco Antonio Higuera said Flores Gamez was traveling
in one of several vehicles that engaged soldiers in an hours-long chase
and gun battle. He said two other members of the drug gang were
detained.
The shootout began when the gunmen
opened fire on a Mexican army patrol. Soldiers gave chase and cornered
the gang at a safe house in the town of Mocorito. Some men escaped, and
the gun battle continued along a nearby roadway, where the gang's
vehicles were eventually stopped. Six vehicles, drugs and weapons were
seized following the confrontation.
Higuera said Flores Gamez's body has been turned over to relatives for burial.
