Gun battle kills 42 gang members
Police shootout with drug cartel in Mexico raises questions about excessive force
ECUANDUREO, MEXICO — The call for backup went out to local police just after 8 a.m. There was a shootout underway at a ranch in the western reaches of Michoacan state and the federal authorities needed help.
One patrolman said he sped with his colleagues from a town 20 minutes away and arrived at the scene to see bullets flying and military and police helicopters hovering overhead in what would become the deadliest confrontation with suspected cartel members in recent memory.
“It looked like a battlefield,” the officer said Saturday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The bloodshed at the private ranch left 42 suspected criminals dead, as well as one federal police officer.
Investigators and human rights officials continued to work late Saturday at the scene.
Photographs from the site showed men without shirts and some without shoes strewn over a ranch, in an area near the border of Jalisco state that is a stronghold of the Jalisco New Generation cartel, one of the most-powerful and fastest-growing organized crime groups to surface in recent years.
The bodies, some appearing to lie with semi-automatic rifles, were shown in fields, next to farm equipment and on a blood-stained patio strewn with clothes, mattresses and sleeping bags. Video of the battle showed federal police officers coming under fire.
Government officials say the shooting broke out Friday as federal authorities responded to a complaint of armed men taking over the ranch. Federal forces heading to the ranch met a truck carrying armed men who opened fire, and when government forces chased the gunmen onto the ranch, they came under heavy fire from others, the security chief said.
Despite the accounts of shooting, the lack of federal casualties raised questions because of a similar case last June 30 in Mexico state, where the army said 22 alleged criminals died in a shootout with troops, while only one soldier was injured. An investigation by The Associated Press revealed that many of the suspects had been killed after they surrendered.