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Mob Tries to Lynch 3 Police Officers in Mexico City

24 February 2010 23:14 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Residents of a Mexico City neighborhood grabbed and tried to lynch three plainclothes Federal Police officers who were questioning two young men, officials said Tuesday, APA reports quoting â€œLatin American Herald Tribuneâ€ newspaper.

Municipal police managed to control the situation and rescue the three federal officers, Mexico City Public Safety Secretary Manuel Mondragon y Kalb told Televisa.

The federal officers, who were holding a pair of local youths without warrants, were surrounded around 8:30 p.m. Monday by the mob, which gathered when word spread about what was happening.

Mexico City police officers went to the scene with Mondragon and negotiated with the mob, saving the federal agents.

Some 62 municipal officers were injured during the operation, with 24 of them taken to hospitals for treatment, Mondragon said.

The federal officers were on the verge of being killed, with the mob screaming that they be burned, Mondragon said.

The situation was completely under control by 11:00 p.m., when the two young men were released.

The federal officers went to San Pedro Actopan, a neighborhood in the Mexico City district of Milpa Alta, in response to an anonymous tip about possible criminal activity, Federal Police commissioner Facundo Rosas told Televisa.

The incident stemmed from â€œconfusion,â€ Rosas said.

Several people in the mob burned an SUV and damaged two other vehicles, the Federal Police said in a statement.

A mob lynched two federal officers on Nov. 23, 2004, in the southern Mexico City district of Tlahuac, mistaking them for members of a gang responsible for a spate of child abductions in the area.

Undercover officers Victor Mireles, Cristobal Bonilla and Edgar Moreno were on a stakeout in Tlahuac when they were seized by some 200 residents.

The three were beaten for two hours before Mireles and Bonilla were burned alive. Moreno managed to escape with help from uniformed officers at the scene.

The entire incident was broadcast live by the main television networks, complete with interviews with two of the officers being lynched.

Authorities arrested 29 people in connection with the officersâ€™ killings.