Thirteen Mexican police officers and investigators were killed in an ambush while traveling in a rural area – marking the latest attack on law enforcement by shameless criminal groups.
Eight state police officers and five members of the state investigative police died in the ambush in the municipality of Coatepec Harinas, 125 km (78 miles) southwest of Mexico City, in the Mexican state on Thursday afternoon, officials said.
“This is an affront to the Mexican State and we will respond with full force and with the support of the law,” said Secretary of Security for the State of Mexico, Rodrigo Martínez-Celis, told reporters. The state attorney general’s office said that police officers were traveling around the region “to fight criminal groups.”
The state of Mexico, which surrounds the national capital on three sides and has more than 15 million inhabitants, is filled with drug cartels and organized crime.
A state government intelligence report obtained by the Animal Politico news agency in September identified 26 criminal groups operating in the state – with La Familia Michoacana and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel fighting for control of important territories. La Familia is believed to control the territory where the police were ambushed and run extortion gangs there, controlling the prices of everything from tortillas to construction materials, according to the report.
Photos posted on social media showed bloody bodies of police in uniforms and ordinary clothes scattered around the crime scene, next to a white pickup truck marked by bullet holes.
Attacks on the police have become routine in Mexico, as the country’s difficulties with drug cartels and organized crime drag on and the homicide rate remains stubbornly high. At least 524 Mexican police officers were killed in 2020, according to the anti-crime NGO Causa en Común. Criminal groups cowed or conspiring with police forces can also be common in parts of Mexico.
The police are often in trouble and “either do not comply with criminal requirements and suffer the consequences, or do and are targeted by other groups at odds with those with whom they became involved,” said Falko Ernst, senior analyst in Mexico at International Crisis Group.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador promised to pacify the country with a less conflicting approach – “hugs, not bullets”, he used to say in his 2018 campaign – while addressing issues such as corruption and poverty.
Subsequently, he promoted the formation of a militarized police force known as the National Guard, which operates under military leadership.