# Angry Mob Kills 2 Federal Agents in Mexico



## copchika911 (Oct 26, 2004)

*Angry Mob Kills 2 Federal Agents in Mexico

By WILL WEISSERT

MEXICO CITY (AP) - A mob angry about recent child abductions cornered plainclothes federal agents taking photos of students at a school and burned the officers alive, mistaking the agents for kidnappers in the latest example of vigilante justice in a country beset by high crime.

Officials said two agents were killed and one was hospitalized.

Federal police director Adm. Jose Luis Figueroa told local media that the three agents went to the school on Mexico City's southeastern outskirts in an unmarked car as part of an operation against drug dealing.

The killings, filmed and broadcast on local television stations, were carried out by a crowd of people who cheered, chanted and shouted obscenities as they kicked and beat the agents. The mob then doused two officers with gasoline and set them ablaze.

Police didn't make any immediate arrests; officials said they were investigating.

In the video, the agents, blood streaming down their faces, spoke into the cameras before the burning, saying they were federal anti-terrorism agents who had been sent to the area on official business.

The agents were held by the mob for several hours before they were killed. Figueroa said police were prevented from responding adequately by heavy traffic and large mobs of residents who blocked authorities from moving in until the two agents were already dead.

The third agent, badly beaten, was rescued by police.

Images taken from a helicopter showed dozens of residents milling around the two burned, motionless bodies left in a street. Dozens of police in full riot gear moved in more than an hour later and dispersed the crowd.

The violence began in the early evening, when locals collared three men staking out a school in the San Juan Ixtayopan neighborhood.

The area has been tense since two youngsters disappeared and were feared kidnapped from the school. Some in the crowd appeared to believe the agents were kidnappers.

When asked about complaints that authorities had failed to respond to demands to investigate the disappearances, Figueroa said a full schedule had prohibited federal authorities from concentrating on the case.

Mexicans, frustrated by government corruption and soaring crime rates, have often taken justice into their own hands.

Earlier this month in another town on the capital's outskirts, police rescued a 28-year-old man that residents were threatening to beat to death for allegedly trying to steal a guitar and tape deck from a community center.

Two years ago, a mob beat to death two of three youths who allegedly tried to rob a taxi driver in Mexico City. *


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## HousingCop (May 14, 2004)

Don't these guys carry some sort of credentials in their wallet saying who they are? 


"Figueroa said police were prevented from responding adequately by heavy traffic and large mobs of residents who blocked authorities from moving in until the two agents were already dead." &lt;----- Sounds like Fitchburgh on a bad traffic day! Don't these guys have blue lights &amp; siren to get through? How about that hovering helicopter? Couldn't it swoop down and get on the PA system &amp; tell the crowd who they were?

So much for that trip to Cozumel I was contemplating. If that's what they do to the Federal cops down there, imagine what they would do to one of us on vacation.............


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