Lynching of agents puts Mexico focus on vigilante justice

Mexico City

-- The images are chilling: A young man, his face bloody and swollen, struggles to tell a television reporter that he is an undercover federal agent, then a mob burns him and another officer alive on camera.

The horrific footage from the killings Tuesday night put a spotlight on growing vigilante justice in Mexico, where police are viewed as inept at best and corrupt at worst and where many people say they must take security into their own hands as crime soars.

Mexican authorities responded to the police deaths Wednesday night as about 500 federal agents stormed the San Juan Ixtayopan area, mounting a search for mob ringleaders.

Witnesses said several people were arrested, but officials were unavailable to confirm how many people were detained.

The officers' deaths came amid rumors that children had been kidnapped from an elementary school in San Juan Ixtayopan, a neighborhood of 35,000 people on Mexico City's southern outskirts. When people saw three men taking photos and staking out the school, they took action.

One after another, residents set off dozens of crude, rooftop bullhorn alarms that serve as a backup security measure in some poor districts. Neighbors poured into the streets, where they cornered and then beat the men. Onlookers cheered and shouted obscenities as they were splattered with the officers' blood.

Reporters arrived, and the assailants pushed the victims before TV cameras so they could be interviewed. Barely conscious and struggling to talk, they nodded and gave one-word answers when asked if they were federal agents.

As television helicopters hovered overhead, police began to arrive. One agent was rescued, carried away unconscious by his arms and legs. But the other two were soaked with gasoline and set ablaze, their charred bodies left bleeding in the street as dozens of people milled around.

The federal police director, Adm. Jose Luis Figueroa, said the three plainclothes agents had been sent to the neighborhood to investigate drug dealing near the school.

As police searched Wednesday for the ringleaders of the mob attack, most public talk focused on the police themselves. Many people questioned why it had taken riot officers hours to arrive. Others said vigilante justice is to be expected in a country where police are infamous for seeking bribes and often implicated in the same crimes they are supposed to prevent.

Mexico City Police Chief Marcelo Ebrard said local police were on the scene immediately but couldn't control the crowd until reinforcements arrived.

There appeared to be little remorse in San Juan Ixtayopan, a community of small concrete- block homes tucked into pine- covered hills at the foot of a snowcapped volcano.

Many people were reluctant to speak to reporters. Some denied that they were present during the beatings. Others said they had stayed up through the night crying after trying unsuccessfully to stop the mob's assault.

But some residents complained that police had ignored reports of the school kidnappings and said they did not regret what happened.

Figueroa, the federal police chief, said a heavy caseload had kept authorities from concentrating on the purported kidnappings, which appeared to be little more than rumor.

Community leader Mario Rios said he had received no reports of kidnappings and knew nothing of children disappearing.