5 police officers killed in Mexico ambush; patrol vehicle set on fire
Five police officers died Monday after they were ambushed by an armed group in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, on the border with Guatemala, local officials said.
The attack happened in the town of Frontera Comalapa, where the Chiapas state police officers were on patrol when they were ambushed.
"Members of the state police were attacked and ambushed," the governor of Chiapas, Eduardo Ramirez, said on social media.
Ramirez identified the slain officers as Guillermo Cortés Morales, Jesús Sánchez Pérez, Joel Martínez Pérez, Brenda Lizbeth Toalá Blanco and Pedro Hernández Hernánde.
The local Security Secretariat said it had deployed more than 1,000 officers to "attend to the situation and guarantee security in the area."
The agency also shared an image of the slain officers' charred patrol vehicle after it was completely engulfed in flames on a roadway.
Later, the agency announced on social media they had arrested a man in connection to the murders. Authorities said the suspect was hiding in the weeds about half a mile from the crime scene, carrying an AK-47 rifle and a backpack with military uniforms. Officials did not immediately give information about other possible suspects.
In recent months, Chiapas has been shaken by a bloody turf war between the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation cartel — the country's two most powerful criminal organizations. Chiapas has been described by the InSight Crime think tank as "a major smuggling hub of both drugs and migrants."
In December, authorities said they recovered more than 30 bodies from pits in Chiapas.
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