Mexico investigators focusing on police commanders for motive in US embassy car shooting

Alexandre Meneghini, File/Associated Press - FILE - In this Aug. 24, 2012 file photo, Mexican military personnel check a vehicle in which two United States government employees were shot on the highway leading to the city of Cuernavaca, near Tres Marias, Mexico. Mexican federal police who ambushed a U.S. Embassy vehicle, wounding two CIA officers, were not investigating a kidnapping in the area, the attorney general’s office

MEXICO CITY — In a strange and aggressive attack by Mexican federal police on a U.S. Embassy vehicle that was pumped with 152 bullets, one major question remains: Why?

Mexican investigators are looking for the answer from five police commanders who are accused of ordering 14 officers to lie about what happened on Aug. 24 south of Mexico City, where two CIA officers and a Mexican Navy captain came under heavy fire while travelling in an armored SUV clearly marked by diplomatic plates.


The police officers, who wounded the Americans and face attempted murder charges, initially said they were in uniform and marked cars, and responded to fire from the SUV. But details of the attorney general’s investigation released Sunday said they were in plains clothes, unmarked vehicles (including two of their personal cars) and under order at all times from their commanding officers.

“Commanders controlled by whom? Whose instructions were they following?” said one Mexican official with knowledge of the case.

The attorney general’s office continues to investigate possible connections between the attack and organized crime, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.

Indeed the case is sensitive, not only between two giant and intricately linked nations sharing a 2,000-mile border, but also inside Mexico, where the federal police and attorney general’s office have used competing media outlets to publicly accuse each other of lying.

Federal police fired on the SUV because “they didn’t stop to think, and everyone just kept firing,” federal police chief Maribel Cervantes told Radio Formula on Monday. “They didn’t follow protocol. But in no way have we found anything to indicate that this was anything planned.”

She said the officers reported to only one of the five commanders facing charges. The 14 officers have been held over for trial. One commander was charged last week with giving false information and released on bail. The other four are fighting their arrest warrants.

The U.S. Embassy is uncharacteristically quiet, given the normal U.S. outrage over attacks on Americans working on foreign soil, from the killing this year of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three others in Benghazi to the torture and murder of DEA agent Enrique Camarena in Mexico nearly 28 years ago.

The CIA officers didn’t receive life-threatening wounds and the navy officer was unharmed.

“We don’t comment on an ongoing investigation,” said Alex Featherstone, spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Mexico. “This is a matter of great importance to both countries and we will continue to cooperate with Mexican authorities.”

The massive hunt for and prosecution of Camarena’s killers in 1985 are still cited as the main deterrent for Mexican criminals who think of messing with U.S. agents, making the August attack even more inexplicable. U.S.-Mexican relations have become even tighter since then. And analysts say there is too much at stake for both countries to let one incident stain the bilateral bigger picture.