Seven police officials killed around Mexico

Three security officials of the state of Tamaulipas were found dead in a car on 19 September in Nuevo Laredo by the US frontier, El Universal reported on 21 September. The three worked for the Tamaulipas Public Security Secretariat or police authority: they were its Police Strategy chief, the Armament officer and the head of Analysis, the state judiciary declared. On 20 September, three plainclothes policemen were shot dead outside a bank in Gómez Palacio, in the northern state of Durango, El Universal reported the next day. The policemen were gunned down from a convoy of three cars driving past; they were from the Estado de México, the state outside Mexico City. A municipal policeman was separately shot dead at an unspecified date in Atlahucan in the south-central sate of Morelos, the daily reported, citing declarations by the prosecutor-general's office. Also on 20 September three gunmen were killed in a shootout with police commandos in Piedras Negras by the US frontier, El Universal reported. Autorities were checking to ascertain if they were among 132 convicts who escaped from the Piedras Negras state prison on 17 September.