A Mexico prison stormed by gunmen disguised as police officers resulted in a shootout that killed nine people. Authorities are blaming Mexican drug gangs.
As previously reported by The Inquisitr , alleged Honduras death squads have been targeting gang members and are backed by the United States .
Six gunmen apparently managed to fool the guards at the Mexican prison in the Guerrero state town of Iguala by claiming to be delivering a prisoner in a vehicle that was later discovered to be stolen. After getting inside, the assailants confronted inmates and then guards in a security tower.
Five of the gunmen who attempted to have the Mexico prison stormed in a surprise attack ended up dead. Four inmates were killed and one of the guards suffered a bullet wound. Mexican army troops were called in to restore order and then Federal police surrounded the prison.
Although the exact motive is unknown, authorities believe drug gangs may have had the Mexico prison stormed in order to rescue one of their members or to assassinate a rival gang member already in prison. They’ve identified the dead attackers and all of them have rap sheets, ranging from cocaine dealers to kidnappers to transporting illegal high caliber weapons.
Guerrero is famous for its beaches but infamous for its poverty and crime. Drug gang turf wars probably led to the highest murder rate in Mexico, with more than 2,300 murders in 2012 alone. Graphic photos of the killings by Mexican drug cartels show dismembered bodies and heads littering the streets, and rivals stabbed to death with many kitchen knives, with bodies dumped out in public as a warning to those who would oppose them.
At about the same time frame as when the Mexico prison was stormed by these gang members, another four inmates managed to escape from a jail in Xochitepec using rope and ladder. Worse yet, many of Mexico’s prisons are claimed to be mostly controlled by the inmates, with six in 10 jails listed by reports as “self-governed.”