Julián Leyzaola Pérez, a former police chief in Tijuana who is said to have survived eight assassination attempts, is back in SAN DIEGO ( Border Report ).
Tijuana’s coming president, Ismael Burgueño Ruiz, announced this month he was appointing Leyzaola Pérez as the state’s next director of public health.
Leyzaola Pérez, a controversial figure, is a former military commander known for his efforts to combat police corruption and drug cartel.
He was appointed Tijuana’s chief of police in 2008 and tried to destroy problem within the police office, enlisting the help of the military.
During his tenure as head of Tijuana’s Police Department, he told investigators that he once rejected an$ 80, 000- a- year present from the , drug trafficking JoaquÃn” El Chapo” Guzmán Loera to support him power drug smuggling in Tijuana.
Four years later, he took on a similar post in Juarez, another Mexican border town mired in drug violence.
He received death threats from cartels as soon as he took office, promising to kill a police officer every day until he resigned.
He was shot twice in the back and once in the neck shortly after leaving a money exchange facility. He was paralyzed from the waist down as a result of the injuries.
Leyzaola Pérez was charged with personally torturing suspected drug dealers and his own police officers, who he believed were working for cartels after recovering, but charges were eventually dropped.
Six years ago, he ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Tijuana.
In recent years, he’d worked as a security adviser in Baja California.
Leyzaola Pérez is not facing any pending charges, according to Baja California’s attorney general, who spoke to reporters on Wednesday.
Nothing, she said, would prevent him from assuming the position legally.
When the new mayoral administration sworn in, he is expected to take the job.
Leyzaola Pérez survived eight attempts on his life, according to a documentary called” Mexico’s Bravest Man” that was produced by TuviTv.
