Policemen among 25 or more killed around Mexico

More than 25 were reported shot or found dead in Mexico over 19-21 February, including a child and several policemen, in killings likely related to crime and drugs, while authorities were looking for four policemen missing in the western state of Jalisco. On 20 February the review Proceso reported the shooting deaths of five in the northern city of Monterrey. In the western state of Guerrero that day, armed residents or the self-styled community police shot dead a suspected criminal and arrested another in the district of Tecoanapa; this may have been the first time the militia shot a criminal since these were formed in January. The residents confiscated four shotguns and burned crops in a small marijuana field the suspects were presumably guarding, Proceso reported. The review counted 18 people killed around the country that day although it was not immediately clear if this included the five reported shot dead in Monterrey; the 18 did include a family of four including an 11-year-old, gunned down in Monterrey after leaving the funeral of a friend or relative who had also been shot. Other victims of the day were two brothers and US nationals found dead in an abandoned petrol station the north-western district of Mexicali, tied with tape and apparently beaten and shot, Proceso reported. On 21 February two policemen were found shot dead in their car in the district of Chimalhuacán outside Mexico City; while four policemen of the district of Jilotlán de los Dolores in Jalisco were reported missing on 20 or 21 February. They were called to investigate a body said found in a nearby spot called El Terrero, but were missing when state investigators later arrived there, Proceso reported. Authorities were looking for them. Also on 21 February: two peasants were ambushed and shot in the countryside outside Atlixtac in Guerrero, while five policemen were shot or found dead in diferent incidents in Gómez Palacio and Lerdo in the northern state of Durango, Milenio reported. The Defence Ministry separately confirmed the deaths of two pilots in a plane crash in Estado de México, north of the capital on 21 Feburary; authorities were investigating its causes, Milenio reported.