Mexico Ambush Kills 14 Cops in Deadliest Attack of AMLO's Tenure

(Bloomberg) -- Fourteen Mexican police were killed in the western state of Michoacan in the biggest attack on law enforcement since President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador took office.The slaying occurred in Aguililla, a town of about 15,000, Mexico’s Ministry of Security and Citizen Protection said on Twitter on Monday. Officers were ambushed at the entrance of the town by men in armored trucks, possibly members of the Jalisco New Generation cartel, one of Mexico’s most powerful and violent groups, according to TV network Televisa, which broadcast images of burning vehicles at the side of a road.Mexico has fought a decades-long war against drug gangs, with Michoacan serving as one of the deadliest battlefields. Lopez Obrador’s landslide victory in last year’s election was fueled in part by his promises to restore security. But homicides are on pace to break last year’s record, according to data through August, rising 3.3% to more than 23,000.The national government’s strategy focuses on education and subsidies for youth, along with deployment of tens of thousands of members from a new National Guard force to the most violent parts of the country. Reports of the police massacre came just hours after AMLO’s security cabinet at his morning news conference provided a summary of advances under his administration.To contact the reporter on this story: Eric Martin in Mexico City at emartin21@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Juan Pablo Spinetto at jspinetto@bloomberg.net, Robert JamesonFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

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