After deadly ambush in Mexico, stories of bravery and horror

GALEANA, Mexico — The eight children, some mere infants, who survived the ambush in northern Mexico not only escaped the drug cartel gunmen who killed their mothers but managed to hide in the brush, with some walking miles to get help despite grisly bullet wounds.

In a testament to a mother’s devotion, one woman reportedly stashed her baby on the floor of her Suburban and got out of the vehicle, waving her arms to show the gunmen she wasn’t a threat. Her bulletriddled body was found about 15 yards away.

The mother was one of nine U.S. citizens — three women and six children, all living in northern Mexico — killed Monday when gunmen opened fire on three SUVs along a dirt road in an attack that left one vehicle a burned-out, bullet-riddled hulk.

Mexican officials said the attackers may have mistaken the group’s large SUVs for those of a rival gang. The Juarez drug cartel and its armed wing, known as “La Linea,” or “The Line,” are fighting a vicious turf war against a faction of the

Sinaloa cartel known as the “Salazar.”

“Those who attacked the occupants (of the vehicles), they let the children go, so that we can deduce that it was not a targeted attack” against the families, said army chief of staff Gen. Homero Mendoza.

Mendoza said the ambush consisted of two attacks more than an hour apart at two places along the road. He said that at 9:40 a.m. a Chevy Tahoe was hit by bullets and exploded in flames, and at 11 a.m., two Suburbans — one carrying the mother and her baby — were hit by gunfire.

The five wounded children were flown to the border by Mexican authorities in a military helicopter to receive care in the U.S.

Thirteen-year-old Devin Blake Langford, one of the few uninjured young people, quickly took charge, eventually walking about 14 miles back to La Mora for help, said Kendra Miller, a relative.

“After witnessing his mother and brothers being shot dead, Devin hid his six other siblings in the bushes and covered them with branches to keep them safe while he went for help,” according to the relative’s account. “When he took too long to return, his 9-year-old sister left the remaining five to try again.”