Monterrey, December 05: Ten suspected drug traffickers and a woman passerby were killed Friday in a shootout with police in northern Monterrey, Mexico’s third-largest city, Sedena state officials said.
The firefight lasted “more than 45 minutes” and took place in two parts: six presumed criminals were killed before four others were shot to death and a woman was caught in the crossfire, military officials told AFP.
In a separate incident Friday also in Monterrey, gunmen drove a van through the door of a local jail and opened fire, killing two police officers and setting free 23 inmates, the officials said.
Sixteen of the sprung prisoners were police officers charged with being in the pay of drug cartels, while the seven remaining inmates were suspected drug traffickers, they said.
President Felipe Calderon has dispatched some 50,000 soldiers and thousands of police in a nationwide clampdown to confront the country’s powerful drug cartels, but has so far failed to stem drug-related violence that has claimed over 14,000 lives in the past three years.
–Agencies