MEXICO CITY — Mexican authorities are trying to sort out why a U.S. Embassy vehicle was shot up by federal police on a rural back road in mountains south of the capital, leaving two U.S. government workers wounded.
Officials from both nations said the federal officers were chasing criminals Friday morning when a hail of bullets was fired at the embassy sport utility vehicle, but the accounts left many questions unanswered.
The two Americans were taken to a hospital in the nearby resort city of Cuernavaca. One had a gunshot wound in his leg and the other was wounded in the stomach and a hand, said a Mexican government official who spoke on condition of anonymity. Hospital officials in Cuernavaca said the wounded were transferred to a Mexico City hospital in stable condition.
The U.S. Embassy did not release the names of the injured workers, who it said were heading to a military training base south of Mexico City.
Its statement said the employees and a Mexican naval captain traveling with them were fired on by a group of men and were chased when they tried to escape. The naval officer was not seriously injured.
Mexico’s federal police agency acknowledged that its own officers fired on the embassy’s SUV, which appeared to be armored and has diplomatic plates. It said the officers were in the area looking for criminals, but it did not explain what happened.
Mexican prosecutors said in a statement late Friday that 12 officers based in Mexico City were being held for questioning.
Officers based in the capital have jurisdiction only in Mexico City and in four suburbs of neighboring Mexico State, not in Cuernavaca.
