Mexico's rights agency says police executed 22 at ranch
Source: Associated Press
Mexico's rights agency says police executed 22 at ranch
Lulu Orozco and Christopher Sherman, Associated Press
Updated 9:24 pm, Thursday, August 18
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Federal police executed at least 22 people on a ranch last year, then moved bodies and planted guns to corroborate the official account that the deaths happened in a gunbattle, Mexico's human rights commission said Thursday.
One police officer was killed in the confrontation in the western state of Michoacan on May 22, 2015. The government has said the dead were drug cartel suspects who were hiding out on the ranch in Tanhuato, near the border with Jalisco state.
The National Human Rights Commission said there were also two cases of torture and four more deaths caused by excessive force. It said it could not establish satisfactorily the circumstances of 15 others who were shot to death.
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The helicopter fired some 4,000 rounds at the ranch house and a nearby warehouse, which caught fire. The helicopter was also hit by gunfire, the report said. One victim died of burns that the commission believes came after he was shot but still alive.
Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/Mexico-human-rights-commission-finds-arbitrary-9171381.php