Less than a week after a wounded Mexican police chief was discharged from Thomason Hospital and the heightened security that came with his stay was ceased, another Mexican gunshot-wound victim was admitted to the county hospital Monday.

Two men were shot to death in a street ambush Monday morning in Palomas, across the border from Columbus, N.M., and two other men were wounded and transported to a U.S. hospital for treatment, Chihuahua state police said. Javier Ortega Miranda, "El Boby," and Adan Perez Fuentes, "El Oscuro," were killed while sitting inside a Cadillac Escalade. Hector Fuentes Leyva and Ricardo Regalado were wounded.

Raymond Cobos, Luna County sheriff, told the Deming Headlight that one of the men was treated at Mimbres Memorial Hospital in Deming, while the other was flown from Columbus to Thomason Hospital, which has a Level 1 Trauma Center.

Thomason Hospital officials did not confirm that either of the wounded men were at the hospital Monday and said security was still at a normal level.

El Paso police spokesman Javier Sambrano said police knew of the special patient.

"We were made aware but there was not any request for any security or anything," he said.

Heavily armed police and sheriff's officers guarded the hospital for three weeks after Cmdr. Fernando Lozano Sandoval of the Chihuahua State Investigations Agency was admitted Jan. 22. Lozano, a U.S. citizen with dual nationality, was shot in a street

Fearing that the killers would try to get to Lozano at the hospital, security measures were put in place. Patients and staff had to go through metal detectors to enter the hospital. The measures were lifted last week.

Violence in Juárez and in Palomas has been mounting this year, possibly due to a power struggle between drug traffickers, police and experts said.

Because of the holiday, officials at Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the El Paso County Sheriff's Office could not be reached Monday.

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