MEXICO CITY - The images are chilling: A young man, his face bloody and swollen, struggling to tell a television reporter that he is an undercover federal agent, shortly before an angry mob burns him and another officer alive on camera.
Tuesday's killings came amid rumors that children had been kidnapped from a local elementary school in San Juan Ixtayopan, a neighborhood of 35,000 on Mexico City's southern outskirts. When residents saw three men taking photos and staking out the same school Tuesday evening, they took action.
One after another, they set off dozens of crude, rooftop bullhorn alarms that serve as a backup security measure here. Neighbors heeding the alarms poured into the streets, where they cornered and then beat the men. Surrounding crowds cheered and shouted obscenities as they were splattered with blood.
Reporters arrived, and the assailants pushed the victims before television cameras so they could be interviewed. Barely conscious and struggling to talk, they nodded and gave one-word answers when asked if they were federal agents.
As television helicopters hovered overhead, police began to arrive. One man was rescued, carried away unconscious by his arms and legs. The other two were bathed in gasoline and set ablaze, their charred bodies left bleeding in the street as dozens of people milled around the scene.
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Tuesday's killings came amid rumors that children had been kidnapped from a local elementary school in San Juan Ixtayopan, a neighborhood of 35,000 on Mexico City's southern outskirts. When residents saw three men taking photos and staking out the same school Tuesday evening, they took action.
One after another, they set off dozens of crude, rooftop bullhorn alarms that serve as a backup security measure here. Neighbors heeding the alarms poured into the streets, where they cornered and then beat the men. Surrounding crowds cheered and shouted obscenities as they were splattered with blood.
Reporters arrived, and the assailants pushed the victims before television cameras so they could be interviewed. Barely conscious and struggling to talk, they nodded and gave one-word answers when asked if they were federal agents.
As television helicopters hovered overhead, police began to arrive. One man was rescued, carried away unconscious by his arms and legs. The other two were bathed in gasoline and set ablaze, their charred bodies left bleeding in the street as dozens of people milled around the scene.
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