El Paso hospital 'locked down' to protect wounded Mexican official

A remarkable scene is unfolding in El Paso, where the county hospital is in lockdown, guarded by federal and local law enforcement.

Why?

They're guarding a Chihuahua police commander, Cmdr. Fernando Lozano Sandoval, who survived an assassination attempt in Juarez in which 51 shots were fired at him. He was being treated at a Juarez hospital, but his family requested that he be transferred across the Rio Grande to Thomason Hospital in El Paso.

El Paso police and sheriff's deputies are posted as guards outside the hospital and are armed with assault-style weapons. The doors are locked and all visitors to the hospital must pass through a metal detector. We reported earlier this week about how the Mexican military is patrolling the streets of several Mexican cities, including Juarez, because of drug-related violence and corruption.

El Paso Times reporters Daniel Borunda and Louie Gilot have an interesting account of this still developing story today on that newspaper's Web site.

-- Lance Murray