Mexican state security chief is among the five dead in helicopter crash in Jalisco state
A special prosecutor is investigating Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto’s role in the ongoing violence in the country.
The U.S. State Department has demanded that Mexico investigate the death toll from one of its border cities, calling on authorities to “promptly” release more information on the incident in Tijuana.
The latest victims of Mexico’s bloody drug war are police, who have often been targeted by criminals, cartels and local vigilantes.
Authorities now say five people were killed in a helicopter crash in western Mexico – the most lethal incident in the violence-tainted country’s history. Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and his top security officials have yet to comment on the crash, though the interior ministry said in a statement that “the president [Pena Nieto] directs its immediate full support to the special forces [federal security forces] to secure the air space” in the country.
The Mexico state security chief, Alejandro Ordaz, is among the dead, the official said, while the aircraft, a Bell 206 Jet Ranger helicopter, was carrying 15 people, nine of them police. A senior official from the state of Jalisco said five people died in the crash.
Miguel Angel Alvarez Galindo, a journalist at the Jalisco attorney general’s office, tweeted that the two men shot dead had apparently killed each other.
The helicopter plunged into a field near the end of a firefight with drug cartel members on the edge of the city.
Photos taken from inside the helicopter, showing blood-stained clothing and the broken windows in the cabin, prompted speculation about who else onboard.
Mexican authorities took to Twitter to deny that it was the national anti-drug organization, after initially saying a security member had died.
The Mexican president responded on Twitter, saying that the cause of the crash was an internal problem among federal security forces.