Mexicali, Mexico – The chief of police in the Mexican state of Baja California Norte escaped unhurt from an elaborate and well-organized attempt on his life Tuesday in this northern border city, authorities said.
Three members of the official’s police escort suffered light injuries, the state attorney general’s office said in a statement.
Manuel Diaz was fired upon by more than a dozen assailants wielding assault rifles and machine guns as he rode in an armored vehicle towards his office in Mexicali, the state capital, the AG’s office said.
The three officers in the police chief’s escort who were injured in the shootout with some 15 gunmen are all out of danger, according to medical authorities.
The assailants had positioned themselves at four points in downtown Mexicali – located next to Calexico, California – from where they opened fire on Diaz and his police escort, according to the AG’s office.
Witnesses said that the gunmen fled the scene of the attack in several vehicles.
Investigators at the state AG’s office told the media that Diaz escaped unhurt thanks to the armor plating on his vehicle.
Authorities are investigating to find out if drug traffickers were behind the incident while they search for the assailants in Mexicali and other towns in Baja California Norte, a state battered over the past few weeks by a wave of killings, assaults and kidnappings.
Hardest hit by the crime wave have been Mexicali and the nearby metropolis of Tijuana, which lies just across the border from San Diego and has been the scene of attacks on the police, businessmen and suspected drug traffickers.
State and federal authorities said that the outbreak of violence is organized crime’s retaliation for the damage it has suffered from government forces, coupled with a war to the death between rival gangs fighting for control of drug smuggling routes into the United States.
