Five slain in Tijuana drug gang violence

TIJUANA, Mexico, Oct. 7 (UPI) -- Five more bodies were found in Tijuana, Mexico, last weekend, adding to the growing death toll from a drug gang war raging in the border city, officials said.

The Baja California Attorney General's office says the bodies were discovered between Saturday night and Monday morning, with one Saturday shootout along Tijuana's main highway leaving one person dead, four injured and 20 vehicles riddled with bullets, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

The battle between Mexican drug cartels has left dozens dead in and around Tijuana in recent weeks. One of the victims, identified as former Rosarito Beach, Mexico, police officer Cesar Beltran Saldivar, was shot to death Friday at a taco shop in the city, officials told the newspaper.

Baja California Attorney General Rommel Moreno Manjarrez told reporters that Beltran, who resigned his police job in March, was suspected in the September 2007 killing of Samuel Espinoza, the assistant Rosarito Beach police chief.