MEXICO CITY — State police in north-central Mexico seized a policeman and four people burying relatives on the same day they killed 13 alleged gang members in a shootout, they said. officials said Friday.
The San Luis Potosi state security agency said in a statement that clashes occurred Thursday night in the Vaqueros community of the city of Rayon.
The victims included 10 men and 3 women. Authorities did not report the injured state police.
The San Luis Potosi state prosecutor’s office said weapons, tactical equipment and vehicles had been seized. Thursday’s operation is based on information gathered after police arrested four people Thursday for burying a member of the State Police and a relative, the office said.
In the southern state of Guerrero on Friday, authorities said they found six bodies with gunshot wounds and two heads nearby.
The Guerrero State Prosecutor’s Office said the body was found near a burned-out and gunned down vehicle in the city of Quechultenango.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador continues to face relentlessly high rates of violence, even halfway through his six-year term. Rather than confronting the country’s powerful drug cartels head-on, the president has emphasized attacking violence with social programs.
“I am convinced that violence cannot be confronted with violence. Coercive measures alone are not enough. That is the conservative, authoritarian vision,” Lopez Obrador said last month.
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