Ambush Kills 14 Police in Deadliest Attack of AMLO’s Tenure

Fourteen Mexican police were killed in the state of Michoacan in the largest attack on law enforcement since President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador took office in 2018.

The slaying occurred in Aguililla, a town of about 15,000, Mexico’s Ministry of Security and Citizen Protection said on Twitter on Monday. Officers were ambushed at the entrance of the town by men in armored trucks, possibly members of the Jalisco New Generation cartel, one of Mexico’s most powerful and violent groups, according to TV network Televisa, which broadcast images of burning vehicles at the side of a road.

Mexico has fought a decades-long war against drug gangs, with Michoacan serving as one of the deadliest battlefields. Lopez Obrador’s landslide victory in last year’s election was fueled in part by his promises to restore security. But homicides are on pace to break last year’s record, according to data through August, rising 3.3% to more than 23,000.

The national government’s strategy focuses on education and subsidies for youth, along with deployment of tens of thousands of members from a new National Guard force to the most violent parts of the country. Reports of the police massacre came just hours after AMLO’s security cabinet at his morning news conference provided a summary of advances under his administration.

Info via Bloomberg