Death in rehab- Mexican drug kingpins will find you anywhere

Late Wednesday night a group of gunmen broke into a Mexican rehab clinic to 'take out' some of the patients. On Friday the mayor of Mugica was arrested in connection to drug trafficking. Such is the state of the drug wars in Mexico.

Mayor Armando Medina, 49, was detained at city hall on Friday. He was taken to the state of Jalisco to face charges in drug trafficking. In Ciudad Juarez, Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz told the media that gunmen killed 17 patients and wounded two others at the El Aviane rehab facility Wednesday night. It wasn't the first time a drug rehab has been targeted. In March a similar attack happened at a center. That time there were 20 bodies at the scene. Ciudad Juarez had the most murders that anywhere else per capita than anywhere else in the world in 2008. It lays just beneath the Texas town of El Paso. Midway through the year more than 1,420 have lost their lives in the town. 2009 could easily top 2008's death toll of more than 1,600 slayings. One of the factors in the huge number of deaths could be that Ciudad Juarez is where the United States deports Mexican criminals too. CNN reports:

"We don't have the statistics to know if they were criminals from the United States or not," Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz told CNN. "We know they were deported from the U.S. Most of them come from U.S. jails. They end up in the city of Juarez, and that's a problem generated for us, but also for the United States."

In Mexico drug rehab centers are used by drug cartels as a source of recruiting and training centers. According to Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna these centers have been known to hold retreats to train members. It's a death sentence for addicts if they don't go along with the 'program.' One of the dead Wednesday night was Jaime Saul Perez, 17. His mother grieves for the son who was trying to turn his life around. He was to return home this weekend after completing his treatment. Seattle Times reports:

"He was getting out," said Jaime Perez, the father. "He promised me he was going to change."

He was one of the 20 people ordered by gunmen to line up against a wall. Within seconds the patients, age 17 to 51, were silenced. Somehow two managed to survive. They are in hospital. The killings are linked to rival gangs.