Mexico’s top police chief out after execution claims

MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s president dismissed the chief of the federal police force Monday, less than two weeks after the country’s human rights commission released a scathing report alleging federal police “executed arbitrarily” at least 22 suspected drug cartel members during a raid on a ranch.

Interior Secretary Miguel Angel Osorio Chong said President Enrique Pena Nieto decided to remove Enrique Galindo to allow for a transparent investigation.

“In light of the recent events and on instructions of the president, Police Commissioner Enrique Galindo has been removed from his position,” Osorio Chong said. “That is with the objective of facilitating that the corresponding authorities carry out an agile and transparent investigation ...”

Earlier this month, Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission announced that its investigation found that at least 22 people were killed without justification by police during the operation at a ranch in the western state of Michoacan on May 22, 2015. It described them as being “executed arbitrarily.”

The report further alleged that police planted guns on some suspects and moved some bodies to bolster the official version that all the deaths occurred during a gunbattle. In all, 42 civilians and one federal police officer were killed.

Galindo and National Security Commissioner Renato Sales had said they accepted the commission’s recommendations, but denied that police executed anyone.

After the incident, federal police had said they encountered a truck and took gunfire from its passengers before being led in a chase to the ranch in Tanhuato.

The commission’s report said the government did not produce evidence supporting that account, and it said witness statements suggested 41 federal police officers had sneaked onto the ranch as early as 6 a.m. Officers started their assault at least an hour earlier than they maintained, the commission said.