Chilpancingo, Guerrero, Mexico – A judge, four prison guards and a police officer were killed Friday in three separate incidents in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero.
In the most serious case, unknown assailants killed four prison guards who were on their way home after working the night shift at a prison in the Pacific resort city of Acapulco, a state official said.
The attackers, who were driving a car with Mexico City plates, intercepted the guards around 9 a.m. (1400 GMT), according to Guerrero Attorney General Eduardo Murueta.
He said the killers shot the warders with 9 mm pistols and then fled.
Almost simultaneously, Murueta said, Acapulco Judge Mario Moreno Navarrete was slain by unknown persons who stabbed him more than a dozen times.
The third death occurred in a clash between police and criminals in a municipality of San Jeronimo, a few kilometers from the tourist beach resort of Zihuatanejo.
In the shoot-out a command-level police officer died, but his identity was not released by the state attorney general.
According to police statistics, Guerrero state has seen some 500 violent deaths to date this year, most of which, from the way they were inflicted, have been attributed to organized crime.
This year there have been more than 1,500 violent deaths in Mexico nationwide.
Along with Guerrero, the states hit hardest have been Michoacan, Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, and Baja California, the latter three on the United States border.
On Sept. 14 the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City issued a travel advisory warning American citizens about Mexico’s increasing level of violence, especially along the border.
Mexican authorities described the warning as “ill-considered.”
