Houston officer takes bullet in cartel crackdown 'Hell to pay' after agent's slaying

Massive raid is launched on cartels in the U.S.; shooting injures officer in Houston sweep

A Houston Police Department SWAT member leaves a raid where an officer was wounded Thursday. Two suspects were arrested, including one who was shot in a north Houston house. The officer is expected to survive; the suspect was listed as stable. less A Houston Police Department SWAT member leaves a raid where an officer was wounded Thursday. Two suspects were arrested, including one who was shot in a north Houston house. The officer is expected to survive; ... more Photo: Eric Kayne, Chronicle Photo: Eric Kayne, Chronicle Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Houston officer takes bullet in cartel crackdown 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

A Houston police officer was shot and an alleged drug dealer wounded Thursday as authorities riding a wave of emotion launched a nationwide attack on Mexico's drug cartels and gangsters in the United States.

Less than 48 hours after the burial of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent slain in Mexico, teams of U.S. federal agents and state and local officers cracked down on drug-traffickers and their allies. Federal authorities in Houston reported 33 arrests and seized drugs, cash and guns. They would not identify any of the suspects arrested locally.

Authorities were still making arrests on Thursday across the country and in Central America, Colombia and Brazil, and they predicted hundreds would be arrested by this morning.

A veteran Houston Police Department narcotics officer was shot Thursday morning after entering a house in north Houston as part of the operation. Nainash Patel, 39, was shot twice, with one bullet going through his elbow and another lodged in his hip. He is expected to fully recover.

Houston police released few details about the suspect, except that he is in stable condition at Houston Northwest Medical Center.

The shooting occurred at 207 Buckboard, across the street from an elementary school. HPD spokesman Kese Smith said officers entered the home after identifying themselves, and a suspect opened fire with a handgun. Another suspect in the home surrendered peacefully, he said.

He 'will not be forgotten'

The sweep, dubbed Operation Bombardier by the Drug Enforcement Administration, started on the East Coast and resulted in arrests from New Jersey to California.

Robert Rutt, special agent in charge of Houston's ICE-Homeland Security Investigations, said U.S. authorities are targeting gangsters and associates in response to ICE agent Jaime Zapata's murder, which has already yielded six arrests south of border.

The effort shows Zapata "will not be forgotten," Rutt said.

"While the murder is personal to ICE, we are arresting transnational gang members and drug traffickers who have links to Mexican cartels because of their criminal activity and not simply out of retaliation," he said.

Zapata was killed and another agent was injured Feb. 15 while driving an armored sport-utility vehicle with official license plates on a main Mexican highway.

Zetas and other cartels

The Zetas cartel is being blamed for the attack. One of its reputed henchmen has apparently told Mexican officials the U.S. agents were mistaken for rival gangsters.

"We are not just going after Zetas, we are going after all cartels," said Carl Pike, assistant special agent in charge of special operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration. "We want all the cartels to realize this. It is the schoolyard mentality — a bully situation. The cartels have pushed - if you don't push back, you become the victim. U.S. law enforcement is not going to become the victim."

U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, a Republican whose district includes part of Harris County, said the nationwide sweep was an appropriate response to the Mexico attack.

"Quite frankly, this operation was long overdue," he said.

"It is a massive undertaking, very dangerous," he said. "It is like walking into a snake pit, where these drug dealers and cartel members are."

White House Drug Policy Director R. Gil Kerlikowske commended agents and officers involved in the sweep.

"Today's forceful crackdown demonstrates that the United States will never back down from the threats posed by barbaric criminal organizations that smuggle poisons into our communities and have no regard for innocent human life," he said.

"Today's forceful crackdown demonstrates that the United States will never back down from the threats posed by barbaric criminal organizations that smuggle poisons into our communities and have no regard for innocent human life," he said.

Mike Vigil, the retired international operations director for the DEA, said the sweep had many similarities to what happened after the murder of DEA agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena, who was tortured to death in 1985 after being kidnapped by Mexican drug traffickers.

"We were going full bore," recalled Vigil, executive director of ManTech International, a global logistics and information technology firm. "The U.S.-Mexico border was largely shut down at one point, and Camarena's killers were hunted across Latin America and Europe.

Raises some eyebrows

"You immediately have to come forth with a tremendous message that they are not going to get away with it," he said.

"If they are going to engage in this type of violence, there is going to be hell to pay."

Coming so soon after Zapata's slaying, both the arrests in Mexico and the U.S. crackdown won praise but have also raised eyebrows.

Few of nearly 35,000 gangland style murders in Mexico during the past four years have ever been investigated, let alone solved so quickly. Even high-profile cases, like last summer's assassination of the man all but certain to have been elected governor of the Texas-Mexico border state of Tamaulipas, remain unsolved.

"These operations are fine, but they should be happening all the time," said Raul Benitez, a Mexican national security analyst. "What I don't like is that they only launch these types of actions when they attack an American agent."

Staff writers Dudley Althaus, Terri Langford, Dale Lezon, Peggy O'Hare, Stewart Powell and Zain Shauk contributed to this report.

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