MEXICO CITY — Gunmen on Thursday ambushed a Mexican authorities convoy conducting a safety patrol southwest of the capital, killing 13 prosecutors and cops in what seemed to be the deadliest assault on Mexican regulation enforcement in properly over a 12 months, officers stated.
The assault was a serious setback to authorities safety forces and one more reminder of the extreme safety challenges going through President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The president took workplace in 2018 promising to make Mexico a safer place, however he has been unable to place a significant dent in the violence that has lengthy bloodied the nation.
Rodrigo Martínez Celis Wogau, safety minister for the State of Mexico, known as the ambush “an affront to the Mexican state” and promised to “respond with total force.”
The convoy on Thursday was patrolling in Coatepec Harinas, about 40 miles southwest of Mexico City, the capital, to “combat criminal groups who operate in that zone,” Mr. Martínez added in a video assertion posted on Twitter.
The demise toll included eight cops from Mr. Martínez’s division, the Security Secretariat, in addition to 5 representatives of the state’s Attorney General’s workplace, officers stated.
The assault seemed to be the deadliest assault on Mexican regulation enforcement brokers since October 2019, when gunmen killed 14 police officers in the state of Michoacán.
The slayings in central Mexico on Thursday added to the 86 cops who been killed this 12 months already, based on Causa en Común, a Mexican anti-corruption group that focuses on public safety.
Last 12 months was the deadliest 12 months for police for the reason that group started monitoring deaths in 2018, with at the least 524 officers killed.
Like most crimes in Mexico, nearly all of police killings go unpunished, safety analysts say.
“The feeling that’s left is that it’s possible to attack an agent of the state without consequences,” stated Alejandro Hope, a Mexico City-based safety analyst. “If we can’t protect the lives of the police, how can we ask them to protect ours?”
The federal authorities instantly responded to the killings on Thursday by deploying parts of the Marines, the Army and the National Guard to the realm, Mr. Martinez stated.
Officials made no fast remark about potential suspects in the assault.
