MEXICO: Gunmen shoot dead a Mexican police chief and three bodyguards as they eat lunch in a Mexico City restaurant

Record ID: 303405

  • Title: MEXICO: Gunmen shoot dead a Mexican police chief and three bodyguards as they eat lunch in a Mexico City restaurant
  • Date: 27th June 2008
  • Summary: (BN17) MEXICO CITY, MEXICO (JUNE 26, 2008) (REUTERS) POLICE HELICOPTER POLICE OUTSIDE RESTAURANT POLICE WALKING PAST RESTAURANT AND ONLOOKERS POLICE OUTSIDE RESTAURANT MAN LYING DEAD IN RESTAURANT POLICE TAPE, EXTERIOR OF RESTAURANT CORDONED OFF DEAD BODY POLICE OUTSIDE POLICE RIFLE VARIOUS OF BODY BEING PLACED IN VAN AND MEDIA PRESENT AT SCENE OF CRIME
  • Embargoed: 12th July 2008 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Mexico
  • Country: Mexico
  • Reuters ID: LVAAB475TEORX0834M4GBKOP06KD
  • Story Text: Gunmen shot dead a Mexican police chief and three bodyguards as they ate lunch in a Mexico City restaurant on Thursday (June 26), the latest police murder in a drug war that has killed more than 1,600 people this year.
    The heavily-armed men burst in and shot Igor Labastida, a regional director for trafficking and contraband in Mexico's federal police force, at a small eatery in the north of the capital, a police spokesman said.
    One of the bodyguards was a woman.
    The murder of Labastida, who survived an attempt on his life in August 2003 while he was a senior investigative police officer, comes amid a rash of police killings in recent weeks as an army crackdown on drug cartels intensifies battles over turf and protection rings.
    In May, one of Mexico's top federal police chiefs, Edgar Millan, was shot dead by hitmen linked to a powerful drug cartel from the Pacific state of Sinaloa as he returned to his apartment in Mexico City.
    In all, some 500 police officers have been killed in drug violence since Mexican President Felipe Calderon launched his military-backed anti-drug offensive in December 2006.
    Calderon's deployment of some 25,000 troops and federal police across Mexico has intensified, rather than curbed, drug violence, and gangs appear to be targeting more top police officers in Mexico City, once thought to be untouchable.
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