Gunmen in ski masks kill 20 people, including mayor, in southern Mexico massacre

Twenty people were killed in a shooting in the southern Mexico small town of San Miguel Totolapan, including the current and former mayor.

The group of shooters wearing ski masks drove two SUVs to the municipal hall and a smaller house in the town, where they killed Conrado Mendoza, the current mayor, and his father Juan Mendoza, the former mayor.

Ten victims have been identified by the authorities, with most of them serving in local government, according to the newspaper Reforma.

The governor of Guerrero state, Evelyn Salgado Pineda, requested a quick investigation by the state office of the attorney general.

“There will be no impunity for the malicious aggression against the municipal president and local government officials,” she tweeted.

The deputy minister for public security, Ricardo Mejia, said that the shooting was carried out by two criminal organisations called the Familia Michoacan and Los Tequileros, according to Bloomberg.

Los Tequileros previously controlled heroin poppy sales in the area, Mr Mejia added.

Gang violence spiked in August with cartel members setting vehicles aflame in the state of Colima. That came after the arrest of a cartel leader.

Following separate arrests, members of the Jalisco Nueva Generacion cartel set fire to 25 convenience stores belonging to the chain Oxxo.

Another local government worker was fatally shot outside a pharmacy in Cuernavaca, a city south of Mexico City in the central parts of the country, according to the newspaper El Universal.

The town of San Miguel Totolapan is located southwest of Mexico City and about 230 miles from the coastal tourist town of Acapulco.

The Guerrero Public Safety Department said in a statement that agents from the Mexican Defence Department worked with police on the state and local levels to take the injured to area hospitals, Bloomberg noted.

Police said the attack took place at 2pm local time on Wednesday when the gunmen laid siege to the San Miguel Totolapan town hall, the BBC reported.

Photos show the building covered in bullet holes.

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The PRD left-wing party, of which the murdered mayor was a member, called his assassination “cowardly” and demanded that justice be carried out.

Others killed in the attack included police officers and council staff.

Juan Mendoza, the former mayor and father of the current local leader, Conrado Mendoza, was murdered at his home ahead of the massacre at the town hall, according to the BBC.

A highway in the state was blocked for a period of time to stop security forces from entering the city.

The town is located in the region of Tierra Caliente in western Mexico where cartels exert control through violence.

A number of criminal groups are fighting for control of the area and its highly sought-after drug routes, following the Pacific corridor, the BBC noted. Opium poppies are grown in the area, which is also a place notable for its heroin production.

While the killing of local government officials isn’t a rare occurrence, the motive for the mass shooting remains unclear.

At least 36 mayors, previous mayors, and candidates for mayoral offices were murdered in 2018. In the last few years, those numbers have decreased to single figures, but local officeholders remain targets as the drug cartels want to be the sole source of authority in any area, the BBC reported.

Just before the shooting, apparent members of Los Tequileros shared a video on social media saying that they had come to the region where they had been in a battle with another drug gang.

The group’s presence led to widespread devastation in the area between 2015 and 2017 until the killing of its leader Raybel Jacobo de Almonte. He was called El Tequilero, the Tequila Drinker, from which the gang’s name was derived. They were infamous for threatening mayors in the region.