Mexican authorities are looking into a shootout in a rural town in the Mexican state of Michoacán that killed five members of a self-defense group.
According to information provided to Breitbart Texas by the Michoacán Attorney General’s Office, a group of 13 members of a self-defense group from the town of Aquila had been conducting a routine patrol in an SUV.
A group of gunmen ambushed the group, killing five and injuring eight others in the firefight. Mexican authorities rushed to the area to provide medical assistance to the self-defense group and to investigate the shooting, the information provided to Breitbart Texas revealed. The attack occurred on a rural road that leads to a local ranch.
For years the Mexican state of Michoacán has been subjected to the rule of drug cartels such as the Knights Templars, their predecessor La Familia Michoacana and other cartels that try to gain territory such as Los Zetas. In recent months, the viciousness of those cartels has led to average citizens taking up arms in order to fight off the drug cartels that many times are complicit with Mexican authorities.
As Breitbart Texas previously reported, Michoacán is one of the two states where the governor resigned under a perceived cloud of corruption after his forces were not able to reign in the violence brought about by drug cartels.