Three Mexican federal police officers were killed in a chaotic shootout in Mexico City’s busy international airport when they tried to arrest drug suspects, officials and witnesses said.
The shooting erupted at a crowded food court at around 8:50am on Monday, sending panicked travelers diving for cover and racing to hide in bathrooms.
Mexico has been gripped by a wave of drug killings in recent years, but the gang violence has mainly been confined to areas along the US border and major ports. There have been no attacks inside the airport in recent memory.
Photo: Reuters
The Mexican Federal Police said late on Monday that the suspects appeared to be airport police who were part of a drug trafficking ring involving corrupt officials, adding that the men had opened fire to evade capture.
“Finding themselves surrounded,” the alleged traffickers “opened fire with their weapons against the Federal Police,” the Mexican Secretariat of Public Security said.
Two federal police officers died at the airport, while another died of wounds in hospital, it said.
Federal and local police cordoned off the area and used airport signs to cover the food court windows.
Some of the shocked witnesses said it appeared as though police were firing on their colleagues, while others said the gunmen were wearing civilian clothes.
“I saw police officers running after another policeman that they eventually shot at,” said Alejandro Suarez, who works at a pharmacy near the food court.
“They were all police officers shooting at each other, at least people in uniform,” a woman told Milenio TV.
She refused to give her name.
“We threw ourselves on the ground — there were four civilians shooting at the police,” another woman told radio Formato21.
Police did not say if the suspects were dressed as police officers.
The Mexican Secretariat of Communications and Transportation issued a brief statement denouncing the “quarrel in an area of open access” of the airport’s Terminal 2.
“This situation does not in any way affect operations,” it said.
Police patrols have increased across the country ahead of Sunday’s presidential election.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion