Mexican drug cartel, police clash turns deadly

Most slain in gun battle were suspected criminals, officials say

MEXICO CITY— A shootout between members of a powerful drug cartel and Mexican security forces in the western state of Michoacan left at least 40 people dead Friday, according to Mexican officials.

The violence unfolded in the morning near the town of Tanhuato, along Michoacan’s border with the state of Jalisco, a troubled region where two drug cartels have waged a long-running battle and where attacks against Mexican authorities have recently spiked.

Mexican authorities offered few details Friday afternoon about the killings, which involved the New Generation cartel of Jalisco and a convoy of federal police and soldiers.

The governor of Michoacan, Salvador Jara, said on the radio that at least one police officer died, as well as 42 gunmen, although those numbers were not confirmed. Photographs from the scene showed authorities had recovered dozens of high-powered rifles.

A federal police official confirmed that at least 40 people had died.

A priest at a nearby church, Manuel Navarro, said that he and his parishioners could see black smoke rising at the scene of the violence but that the townspeople continued to work and go out in the streets. “The people must be scared,” he said. “But what are we going to do?”

“Everybody knows there were killings, but the people just say, ‘God help us,’ ” he added.

The New Generation cartel has grown into one of the country’s most powerful drug gangs and has been involved in several large-scale attacks against authorities in recent months. In April, the group ambushed a convoy of state police officers as they drove through a rural gorge, killing 15 of them. Earlier this month, gunmen shot down a Mexican military helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade, killing six soldiers.

Over the past two years, the gang has battled Michoacan’s dominant cartel, the Knights Templar, as well as members of the citizens militia group that emerged there to combat the drug gangs’ killing and extortion. Authorities in Jalisco have expressed concern that they are not getting enough help from the federal government to halt the expansion of the New Generation cartel.

An official says about 40 people have been killed in large-scale firefight between law enforcement and criminal suspects in western Mexico.

The official said almost all the dead were suspected criminals.

He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.