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Mexican Town Rocked By Bloody Ambush That Killed 13 Cops

Bullet cas­ings still lit­tered the ground on Friday in Coatepec Harinas, a trou­bled munic­i­pal­i­ty south­west of Mexico City, a day after 13 police offi­cers on patrol were bru­tal­ly mur­dered in an ambush by sus­pect­ed gang members.
Forensic teams and dozens of heav­i­ly armed police and mil­i­tary offi­cials gath­ered at the cor­doned-off crime scene with check­points in place after what was one of the worst mass slay­ings of Mexican law enforce­ment offi­cials in years.
Some res­i­dents looked on from their homes, shak­en by the vio­lence that rocked the small town nes­tled between ver­dant hills and corn­fields, where most peo­ple make their liv­ing cul­ti­vat­ing crops.
Local police said crime is com­mon there, but Thursday’s ambush was par­tic­u­lar­ly har­row­ing for local peo­ple, with bul­lets straf­ing some of their homes.

The con­voy of secu­ri­ty per­son­nel was attacked in broad day­light by gun­men as it patrolled the area about 40 miles (64 km) south of the city of Toluca, author­i­ties said.
The attack­ers round­ed up the bod­ies of the fall­en police offi­cers into a pile and con­tin­ued to spray them with bul­lets, accord­ing to a local offi­cer at the scene on Friday. “They fin­ished them off,” said the offi­cer, who declined to give his name. He had lost col­leagues in the ambush, he said.
Local res­i­dent Guadalupe Flores, 26, said she heard the shoot­ing direct­ly out­side her win­dow when it start­ed. She had just fin­ished feed­ing her baby and, fear­ing for their lives, took the child and hid at the back of the house until the vio­lence was over about a half-hour lat­er. “I was ter­ri­fied for my girl… It sound­ed hor­ri­ble,” Flores said, point­ing at the bul­let cas­ings in her dri­ve­way and bul­let holes on the cement wall of her home. Men cursed loud­ly at each oth­er in her dri­ve­way dur­ing the shoot­ing, she said.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Friday vowed to bring the killers to justice.
“We are filled with sor­row about what hap­pened in the State of Mexico,” he said at a reg­u­lar news con­fer­ence, refer­ring to the state where the killings occurred. There will be no “immu­ni­ty” for any­one, he added.