Shootout or execution? Mexico officials stand by account of deadly ranch gun battle

MORELIA, Mexico – Mexican officials stood by their account Monday of a shootout that killed 42 suspected criminals and one federal police officer last week, dismissing questions raised about the lopsided death toll.

“There was not one single execution, I can say that categorically,” Enrique Galindo, head of Mexico’s federal police, told local media.

The 42 men died Friday during a three-hour gun battle on a ranch in Michoacan state. Officials say the fight began when police officers came under fire while responding to a report of armed men taking over the Rancho del Sol, in Ecuandureo, a township near the border with Jalisco state.

It was the deadliest such confrontation in recent memory and followed two deadly clashes in the area controlled by the powerful Jalisco New Generation cartel: The gang is blamed for an ambush that killed 15 state police officers in April and for a May 1 attack in which a rocket launcher shot down an army helicopter, killing eight soldiers.

READ MORE: Many questions remain in Mexico cartel gun battle that killed 43

Families of some of the men killed on Friday told The Associated Press that after viewing the remains of their loved ones, they doubted the official account. Relatives gathered at a local morgue said one body was missing an eye and had facial bruising, another had its teeth knocked inward. Another had a gunshot in the top of the head.

Galindo said a helicopter gunship had participated in the shootout and that its role had been decisive. “If the helicopter had not arrived, the death toll might have been different.”

National Security Commissioner Monte Alejandro Rubido said at a news conference later Monday that the helicopter had been hit three times by bullets from an AR-15 assault rifle.

Authorities detained three people and confiscated 38 semi-automatic weapons, two smaller arms, a grenade launcher and a .50-calibre rifle. They had initially said they seized 40 weapons.

READ MORE: At least 43 dead in 3-hour firefight on ranch in western Mexico

Speaking to the television network Televisa earlier Monday, Rubido said tests on the bodies of the victims showed they had been shot “from a considerable distance … dozens of meters (yards),” ruling out anybody having been finished off at close range.

An official from Michoacan state, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press, said all the dead were men and most died from gunfire.

Rubido said the three men arrested were “the only three who when told to surrender, did so. The others refused and continued shooting.”

But the lopsided death toll, and photographs from the scene in which bodies appeared to have been moved, raised questions about the official version.

Family members who arrived at the morgue in the state capital, Morelia, to retrieve the bodies spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they feared reprisals, but some were willing to provide the names of their dead relatives. Many were from Ocotlan in Jalisco state and said that a group of at least 25 men from the town had gone to the ranch after being offered work.

Juan Enrique Romero Caudillo, 34, was one of those men. Family members said he sold scrap metal to make a living.

“He said he had been offered maintenance work at the ranch,” said a relative, adding that Romero didn’t belong to a gang.