Gunmen attack police station, sparking deadly shootout in Mexico
Gunmen opened fire on a police station in the north-central state of Guanajuato Sunday, and several people were killed when police returned fire. Police in the city of Celaya said that several attackers had been killed, but did not give an exact number. The attack occurred in a town on the outskirts of the city.
Celaya police chief Jesús Rivera said three police officers had been wounded, but their injuries did not appear to be life-threatening.
Guanajuato has the highest number of homicides of any of Mexico's 32 states.
More than 2,100 murders were registered in Guanajuato, a state of six million, between January and August, according to government figures.
Earlier this month, nine people were killed, including waitresses, after gunmen burst into a bar and opened fire in the violence-wracked state. Last month , a dozen people, six of them women, were killed in an attack on a bar in another Guanajuato city. A similar attack on a bar in another town left 10 dead in September.
The state has been the scene of a years-long turf battle between the Jalisco cartel, and local gangs supported by its arch-rival, the Sinaloa cartel.
The Department of Justice considers the Jalisco cartel to be "one of the five most dangerous transnational criminal organizations in the world." The cartel's leader, Nemesio Oseguera, "El Mencho," is among the most sought by Mexican and U.S. authorities.
The head of the Drug Enforcement Administration told CBS News that the Jalisco cartel is one of the Mexican cartels that are behind the influx of fentanyl in the U.S. that's killing tens of thousands of Americans.
"Those cartels are acting with calculated, deliberate treachery to get fentanyl to the United States and to get people to buy it through fake pills, by hiding it in other drugs, any means that they can take in order to drive addiction and to make money," DEA Administrator Anne Milgram told "CBS Mornings."