Wednesday 7 November 2012

Policemen ambushed, murderers caught in Mexico

Three policemen killed in an ambush were among six reported victims of violence around Mexico on 6 November. The three members of the state police were shot while driving in the district of Arcelia in the western state of Guerrero, Proceso reported. A suspect was separately shot dead by police in the northern city of Torreón, after refusing to stop his car; a gun was later found inside. Another victim identified as a local drug dealer, was shot dead by police in Tulum on Mexico's Caribbean coast. He and two others were sought out when police received a phone call that "three armed men were beating" someone in a karaoke bar. They escaped toward a house whence they fired on police coming after them; one was arrested. Proceso separately reported an "attack" on police late on 5 November in the Pánuco district of the eastern state of Veracruz, apparently without casualties. Authorities announced also the arrest, apparently in the western city of Guadalajara, of two presumed members of the cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación (JNG) who confessed to killing three public-transport employees in neighbouring Zapopan on 11 October. They said they had been ordered to kill the drivers to avenge the death of a relative of one of the cartel's leaders by a bus driver, though it was not immediately clear if this had been an accident, Proceso reported on 6 November. The JNG cartel reportedly killed five transport workers in Zapopan that day. The detained confessed to taking part in 14 other killings, including of a three-year-old accidently killed in a shootout.