Mexico’s Culiacan tries to regroup after fierce gunbattles

PETER ORSI Associated Press CULIACAN, Mexico (AP) — A dozen or so charred vehicles sit in a government impound lot outside this northwestern city including a patrol car, a military pickup and a tractor-trailer, casualties of a recent terrifying shootout between drug gang henchmen and Mexican security forces. In a central district where the worst of the violence took place, blown-out windows have been replaced and bullet holes are plastered over on restaurants, convenience stores and a home where the son of Mexico's notorious drug lord was believed to have been holed up. Those physical scars of the Oct. 17 gunbattles — what's come to be known as "black Thursday" by residents of Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa and a stronghold of the Sinaloa cartel long led by Joaquín "El Chapo" G