MEXICO CITY: Mexico City’s chief of police was shot and injured and two of his bodyguards killed in a dramatic assassination attempt early on Friday that he quickly blamed on one of Mexico’s most powerful drug gangs, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), foreign media reported.
The city’s public security chief Omar Garcia Harfuch suffered three bullet wounds as he and bodyguards came under heavy fire around dawn in an upscale Mexico City neighborhood, where the attack was captured on security cameras.
Some three hours later, apparently from his hospital bed, Garcia sent out a message on Twitter blaming his injuries and the death of two bodyguards on a “cowardly attack” by the CJNG, a gang notorious as one of the most violent in Mexico.
A 26-year-old woman traveling in a car with relatives to sell street food nearby was killed in the gunfire that ripped through the Lomas de Chapultepec neighborhood. The area is home to many wealthy people and has ambassadorial residences.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said the attack showed that authorities were putting pressure on criminal gangs in the capital, which has rarely witnessed such brazen outbreaks of violence.
“There will be no turning back,” Sheinbaum told a news conference.
Still, the early morning mayhem was the latest in a series of public security lapses that have raised tough questions about the president’s ability to control gang violence.
Grainy security camera footage broadcast on Mexican television showed a group of heavily armed men in an open-backed truck disguised as a work vehicle, and an SUV blocking off a road to open fire on Garcia’s automobile.
Separately, fast-arriving police could be seen shouting and moving towards the high caliber gunfire that rang out for several minutes just after 6.30 a.m. local time (1130 GMT).
Television footage of Garcia’s armored SUV showed a vehicle riddled with bullets cordoned off by police
Garcia was wounded in the shoulder, collarbone and the knee, Security Minister Alfonso Durazo told a news conference.
Police said they arrested a 15-year-old male at the scene
Russian missile and drone attacks have pounded Ukrainian energy infrastructure since mid-March
More than half of all IDA countries are in Sub-Saharan Africa
Five of the six people he killed were women as were the majority of the 12 injured
Kejriwal is a fierce critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi
Top Mumbai Police sources revealed that the attack was carried out by Rohit Godara
