Eleven people were arrested in Sonora for an attack outside the Guaymas municipal palace that killed three people on Thursday.

The target of the attack is thought to be municipal police Chief Andrés Humberto Cano Ahuir, officials said, despite a feminist protester being among the victims and the mayor of Guaymas being present outside the palace.

A delegate from the state Attorney General’s Office, Francisco Sergio Méndez, said the large arrest operation on Sunday in Guaymas and the nearby town of San Carlos involved 120 navy personnel, 34 state police officers and 24 federal agents.

He added that the arrests were made for possession of narcotics.

One of the victims, Marisol Cuadras, an 18-year-old feminist protester, was identified as the daughter of a navy official. A member of the mayor’s security team, Antelmo Eduardo, 40, was killed, as was an armed, unnamed criminal suspect. Another young protester, Jovanna, and a municipal official were wounded.

Cuadras was one of several people who had gathered outside the palace for the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

Navy Minister José Rafael Ojeda ruled out the possibility that the attack was aimed at Mayor Karla Córdova, who had left the palace with Cano to address the protesters, and said Cano was the target. 

“It was not an attack directed at the mayor … they were going for the captain,” he said on Friday.

State Attorney General Claudia Indira Contreras Córdova confirmed the protesters were not targeted. “What was shared by the delegate and the prosecutor clearly leave the certainty that the aggression was not for the feminist group,” she said, and added that Cano had been the target of threats.

With reports from Reforma