Mind numbing. When will this end?
Police find 12 tortured bodies in Mexico
MEXICO CITY – Prosecutors said they found the bound, blindfolded and tortured bodies of at least a dozen people Monday on a roadside in the western state of Michoacan, which has become a flash point in Mexico’s war on drugs.
Initial reports indicated that 11 men and one woman were likely killed elsewhere at least a day earlier and dumped near the town of La Huacana, officials in the state attorney general’s office said.
It was one of the largest execution-style slayings since the killing of 24 men whose bodies were found bound with duct tape and shot in the head in September in a rural area west of Mexico City. In August 2008, the decapitated bodies of 12 men were found outside the southern city of Merida.
The officials, who spoke on customary condition of anonymity, said the number of victims could increase as police continue investigating the scene.
Also in Michoacan on Monday, the bodies of two men who had been tortured and executed were found near an airport in the state capital, Morelia.
In both cases, the methods used by the killers were those often used by drug cartels to eliminate rival traffickers.
In the Michoacan port of Lazaro Cardenas on Monday, gunmen attacked a hotel where federal police stay, wounding at least one officer, the officials said.
Michoacan, President Felipe Calderon’s home state, is at the center of his drug war and has been wracked by a wave of killings and arrests in recent weeks.