Mexico City police chief wounded in deadly assault
Police officers secure the area after Mexico City's Public Security Secretary Omar Garcia Harfuch was wounded in an attacked in Mexico City, on June 26, 2020. (Photo by PEDRO PARDO / AFP) (Photo by PEDRO PARDO/AFP via Getty Images)
NEW YORK - Heavily armed gunmen attacked and wounded Mexico City’s police chief in a brazen operation that left some people dead, Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said Friday.
Sheinbaum said on Twitter that the capital’s Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch was being treated in a hospital, but was out of danger. “There were deaths and several arrests,” she said.
Sheinbaum said she would share more information at a news conference later in the day.
The police said in a statement that gunmen armed with .50 caliber sniper rifles and grenades exchanged fire with the chief's security detail. The statement said two police were wounded. Harfuch was hospitalized in stable condition, it said.
The attack occurred around 6:30 a.m. on Mexico City's grand boulevard Paseo de la Reforma in an area of large homes surrounded by walls and foreign embassies.
There was no immediate word on motive or the identity of the attackers, but a number of organized crime groups operate in the city.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador offered his support and solidarity to Sheinbaum and the city's public security forces.
“It has to do without a doubt with the work he is carrying out to guarantee peace and tranquility,” López Obrador said.