MEXICO City – Suspected cartel hitmen shot dead over a dozen police in an ambush in the western Mexican state of Michoacan, authorities said.
The federal public security ministry on Monday said 14 police were killed, though its Michoacan state counterpart reported 13 officers were confirmed dead and three were injured.
Three police trucks were ambushed and there was no indication that the suspected gang members had suffered casualties, a state official said.
Michoacan has for several years been a stronghold of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, which in 2015 was blamed for a series of attacks on police in the neighboring state of Jalisco as it sought to consolidate its control over drug trafficking in the region.
Fifteen police were killed in a single ambush in Jalisco in 2015 during six weeks of violence that claimed the lives of over two dozen officers and culminated in the shooting down of an army helicopter on May 1, 2015.(Reuters)
