Republished April 02, 2018 - 1:56 PM
Original Publication Date April 02, 2018 - 10:46 AM
MEXICO CITY - Prosecutors in western Mexico said Monday that one police officer and eight gunmen were killed in a shootout in the state of Jalisco.
The state prosecutor's office said officers were patrolling the town of Jalostotitlan when assailants opened fire on them from several vehicles. Following the gunfight, the dead gunmen were found inside pickup trucks and SUVs or on the ground around them.
Three police officers were wounded in the shootout late Sunday.
The Jalisco drug cartel is active in the area.
Also Monday, authorities in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz said an eighth person — an inmate — died as a result of a weekend prison riot.
Six police officers died Sunday from smoke inhalation after prisoners started a fire while resisting an effort to transfer dangerous inmates out of the La Toma prison. A seventh person, later identified as an inmate, also died Sunday, apparently as a result of a fight with another prisoner.
Gov. Miguel Angel Yunes said four "highly dangerous" inmates had been helping run criminal networks in the area around the La Toma prison in the town of Amatlan de los Reyes, so officials had decided to transfer them to a maximum-security federal prison.
Yunes did not name the criminal gang involved, but the area was long dominated by Zetas cartel.
When local police, in support of state police, went into the prison to get the four inmates for transfer, they were apparently ambushed by prisoners, who blocked their escape and lit a fire that suffocated six officers, the governor said.
Yunes said Monday that somebody — perhaps prison officials — had leaked information on the impending transfers to the inmates, which allowed them time to set up the attack on the police officers. Yunes said an investigation on the leak was under way.
News from © The Associated Press, 2018