MEXICO CITY: 2 US Embassy Officers & 1 Mx Marina wounded by Gunfire From Federal Police

 

That ambush took place when U.S. personnel and an employee of the Mexican navy were headed to a mountain installation known as El Capulin. The U.S. vehicle, a gray four-door Toyota SUV, had left the main highway and had turned down a dirt road when a vehicle with armed men cut it off.

          

When the embassy vehicle sought to return to the main highway, the assailants opened fire. Three other vehicles carrying gunmen joined the chase, firing on the embassy vehicle.

The Mexican naval official radioed for help, and Mexican army and federal police units were summoned, the statement said.

 

Mexican news reports said the embassy vehicle had reached the main two-lane highway heading toward Cuernavaca when federal police opened fire. Photos show that the embassy vehicle had clearly visible diplomatic license plates.

 

The government statement did not provide an explanation for why the federal police fired on the U.S. vehicle or indicate whether federal police might have confused the embassy vehicle for one carrying the assailants. It said the federal police involved were providing explanations to prosecutors to determine if they had criminal responsibility.

 

Photographs from the scene showed that gunmen pumped at least 30 rounds into the armored SUV, bringing it to a halt in the middle of the two-lane highway, its tires punctured. The vehicle suffered crash damage to its right front.

 

Mexican news reports identified the U.S. employees as Stan Dave Boss, 62, and Jess Garner, 49. After the shooting, the two were taken to Cuernavaca’s Inovamed Hospital, arriving at 9:10 a.m.

 

“They arrived in stable condition. They were conscious,” said Mercedes Alcalde, a social worker at the hospital. She said they were transferred at 11:30 a.m. to a hospital in Mexico City.

 

U.S. Embassy spokesmen declined to say which federal agency the two work for or to provide details of their mission in Mexico.

 

“It did not involve the DEA,” said Barbara Carreno, a spokeswoman for the Drug Enforcement Administration.

 

A Pentagon spokesman, Lt. Col. Tom Crosson, said the ambush was “not an event that we’re tracking,” and that the victims were not U.S. military personnel “as far as I know.”

The Mexican navy did not immediately respond to requests for information on the purpose of the El Capulin installation.

 

Mexico’s 35,000 or so federal police have an increasing role in the fight against the crime gangs that wrack parts of Mexico, the main conduit for cocaine from South America to the United States.

 

Better equipped than municipal and state police, the federal police have been afflicted by corruption, underscored by a shootout in the Mexico City airport June 25 when several federal officers shot and killed three co-workers mounting a drug sting, then fled underground.

 

“You have different pieces of the state working for different crime groups,” said Edgardo Buscaglia, a security expert and senior scholar at Columbia University. “I’m very doubtful that this was just an accident.”