Video shows 2 agents wounded in Mexico by apparent booby trap after severed head reportedly found in house
A forensic examiner and a detective were wounded when an explosive device went off while they were examining a crime scene in northern Mexico, authorities say.
The device appears to have been a booby trap, though police in the state of Guanajuato have not confirmed that.
The state prosecutors' office said Thursday that both of the wounded agents were in stable condition. Police in the violence-plagued Guanajuato city of Irapuato said plastic bags covered in blood had been found inside a house earlier.
Local media reported a severed head had also been found in the house.
A local website, TVConsequencias, was filming the crime scene when the explosion occurred. The video, posted to Facebook, shows agents walking in front of a house roped off with police tape, when a powerful blast erupts inside the structure.
A massive plume of smoke can be seen coming from the house and later in the video, one of the injured agents can be seen being helped toward a truck. Soon, National Guard vehicles can been seen arriving.
Guanajuato-based security analyst David Saucedo said the blast was caused by "a booby-trapped grenade connected to a door. It went off when it was opened."
Guanajuato has been in the throes of a bloody drug cartel turf battle between the local Santa Rosa de Lima gang and the Jalisco cartel for years.
The Jalisco cartel's leader, Nemesio "El Mencho" Oseguera, is one of the United States' most-wanted fugitives, with a $10 million bounty on his head. The Department of Justice considers the cartel "one of the five most dangerous transnational criminal organizations in the world."
While drug cartels in the neighboring state of Michoacan have begun using improvised explosive devices on roads to disable army vehicles, booby traps are relatively infrequent in Mexico.
In 2010, a car bomb aimed at federal police officers exploded in the northern border city of Ciudad Juarez, killing three people and wounding nine. A drug cartel suspect used a cell phone to set off the explosives-laden car, which killed a federal police officer and two civilians, and wounded nine people.
