Senior Mexican police officer shot dead in Cancun

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Gunmen killed a senior police
officer in the Mexican resort of Cancun on Monday night,
blowing his head open in the latest grisly assassination to hit
the country.

Police officials in Cancun said local police chief of staff
Wilfrido Flores, 56, and his bodyguard were shot dead in their
car in a busy avenue in the Caribbean resort, one of Mexico’s
biggest tourist pulls, just before midnight.

However they played down links to a spate of similar
killings in cities like Acapulco and Tijuana in a brutal war
among drugs cartels and security forces.

“They were fired at half an hour after leaving the office.
We don’t know how many or who they were. (Flores) had 15 bullet
wounds, mainly in his head and neck. A lot of his face was
destroyed,” said police spokesman Oscar Meza.

“It surprised us. We can’t see a motive. He works in an
office planning public security. He’s not on operations and has
nothing to do with investigating drug cartels,” he said.

Last weekend alone, kidnappers killed four policemen in the
Pacific coast state of Guerrero — gagging and shooting three
and beheading another — and seven civilian murders were
reported.

Last week, police in Tijuana said they had found the
severed heads of three police officers and a fourth man.

Drug violence and attacks on police have risen in the
run-up to the July 2 election, which has leftist Andres Manuel
Lopez Obrador and conservative Felipe Calderon in a close race
for the presidency.

“Of course, they are not creating any problem for the
election,” President Vicente Fox’s spokesman Ruben Aguilar
said.

The violence flared up after Fox launched a war on drug
cartels early last year.

Police killings are rarer in Cancun, although the resort
has seen a handful of gory civilian murders in recent months.
Flores was a former army colonel.