Mexican police burned alive in mistaken identity case
Two police officers have been burned alive by a mob of furious residents after the officers were mistaken for child kidnappers.
The crowd, angered by recent kidnappings at a school in Mexico City’s south-eastern outskirts, cornered the officers taking photos of children leaving the building yesterday.
Officials said two agents died and one was being treated in hospital. Federal police director Jose Luis Figueroa said the three agents, none wearing uniforms, had headed to the San Juan Ixtlayopan neighbourhood in an unmarked car as part of an operation against drug dealing in the area.
The killings, filmed and broadcast on local television stations, were carried out by a crowd of people who cheered, chanted and shouted obscenities as they kicked and beat the plain-clothed officers. The mob then dowsed two of them with petrol and set them on fire.
This is the latest example of mob justice in a country beset by corrupt police and high crimes rates.
The area had been tense since two youngsters had disappeared and were feared kidnapped from the school.
The images were taped, then broadcast on television. At one point before the burning, the victims, blood streaming down their faces, spoke into the cameras, saying they were federal anti-terrorism agents in the area on official business.
Police did not immediately arrest anyone, but were investigating. The agents were held by the mob for several hours before they were killed.
Figueroa said heavy traffic and residents who blocked authorities from moving in until the two agents were dead kept police from responding.
The third officer was badly beaten, but eventually rescued by police and rushed to a nearby hospital.
Images taken from a helicopter showed dozens of residents milling around the burned, motionless bodies of the two agents, left in a street. Dozens of police in full riot gear moved in more than an hour later and dispersed the crowd.
Mexicans, frustrated by government corruption and soaring crime rates, have often taken justice into their own hands.
Earlier this month in another town on the capital’s outskirts, police rescued a 28-year-old man residents were threatening to beat to death for allegedly trying to steal a guitar and tape deck from a local community centre.
And two years ago, an angry mob beat to death two of three youths who allegedly tried to rob a taxi driver in Mexico City.
