Acapulco: Gunmen ambushed and killed
12 police officers who had been sent to investigate the beheadings of 10 people in southern Guerrero state, Mexican
authorities said.
Guerrero state police spokesman Arturo Martinez said
yesterday six state and six local officers were killed Sunday
night on a road leading out of the town of Teloloapan. Another
11 officers were wounded.
The attack on the officers occurred as they were
travelling in six patrol pickups and searching for the bodies
of seven men and three women whose severed heads were dumped
outside the town`s slaughterhouse earlier Sunday, Martinez
said.
The heads were left with a message threatening the La
Familia drug cartel, whose home base is in neighbouring
Michoacan state.
Teloloapan is near the area shared by both Guerrero and
Michoacan states and known as Tierra Caliente for its steamy
weather.
The region is a violent, mountainous zone that has been
used by drug traffickers to grow marijuana and opium poppies
for years. It has been plagued by drug violence in recent
years as drug gangs fight to control the area. Authorities say
La Familia has been severely battered in the fighting.
Soldiers have been sent to the area but that hasn`t
stopped gunmen from killing priests, politicians, police
chiefs, or anyone else who gets in the way.
Two years ago, nine police officers were kidnapped in
Teloloapan when they were investigating the death of a man in
the village of El Revelado. The bodies of eight of the
officers were found days later. Six had been dismembered. One
was found alive.
More than 47,000 people have died in drug violence
nationwide since President Felipe Calderon began a crackdown
on drug cartels in December 2006.
PTI
