Teen Survives Being Shot, Dangled From Bridge

A kicking, screaming teenager with a gunshot wound was found dangling from a rope over a busy highway yesterday in the northern Mexican city of Monterrey. Another man alongside him was dead by the time rescuers arrived and a third was found dead below, police say. Witnesses saw a group of gunmen descend from a vehicle and hang the men off a bridge around 10am, stopping traffic along one of the busiest routes in Mexico's third-largest city, which has been plagued by drug-gang violence. All three of the men had been shot and tortured, and their hands were bound with duct tape, said an unnamed police investigator.

The dead man, estimated to be in his early 20s, dangled lifelessly in a blue shirt and plaid shorts. Bound in his hands was a cell phone, a possible sign that he was considered an informant. Two other men, one with a foot cut off, were hanged by their necks from a pedestrian bridge Sunday in Monterrey; both died. More than 35,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence across Mexico since President Felipe Calderon launched an offensive against drug cartels when he took office in December 2006. (More drug cartel stories.)