Gangster ambush kills several security officers in west Mexico
Gunmen from a criminal gang have opened fire on a police convoy in Mexico’s western state of Jalisco, reportedly killing a number of people.
In a statement, the prosecutor’s office in Jalisco said, “Several of our officers were hit by bullets” on Monday, without revealing if anyone had been killed.
However, according to local media reports, 15 people, who were all members of the Jalisco Unified Force, a unit of the state prosecutor’s office, were killed in the assault.
The statement further said the attack occurred on a highway near the village of Soyatan as the officers were en route to Guadalajara, the capital and largest city of Jalisco.
The statement did not identify the gang, but the so-called Jalisco New Generation cartel has been actively operating in the region.
Apparently, the ambush was a retaliatory measure over the arrest of gang suspects in a probe into the attempted murder of Jalisco’s security chief Alejandro Solorio Arechiga on March 30.
Fifteen suspects are currently under investigation over the attack. Four of them have been detained.
In late March, a similar deadly ambush against federal police in the town of Ocotlan, located about 471 kilometers (292 miles) west of the capital, Mexico City, left ten people, including five police officers, dead.
Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto has pledged that his administration will rid the country of gang violence, which has claimed about 80,000 lives in Mexico since 2007. In spite of the promise, the steady stream of killings has continued unabated.
The government says it has a database of 26,000 missing people in connection with drug-related violence.
HJM/HJL/HMV
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