The municipal police chief, his bodyguard and 12 officers have been arrested for the murder of three state investigators in Tecamachalco, Puebla. 

After an attack on a Coppel store in the city on November 19, state investigators were called to the scene but were shot in the head by municipal police. Members of the force are allegedly linked to criminal organizations, the newspaper El Sol de México reported.

Minutes after the confrontation, state investigators arrested the 12 municipal officers and and Chief Alejandro Santizo,Santizo later turned himself in. 

The victims worked for a department of the state Attorney General’s Office which specializes in high incidence crimes.

Mayor Ignacio Mier Bolaños initially said the attack was the result of confusion. However, Governor Miguel Barbosa confirmed at a ceremony for the victims on Sunday that the investigators were murdered intentionally. “It was an execution …”

Attorney General Gilberto Higuera Bernal said the three investigators were shot from a strategic position, supporting the murder hypothesis. “It is evident that there was a specific firing position to shoot our personnel, who at no time fired [their weapons],” he said.

Barbosa observed that the different public institutions must be synchronized to work effectively. “Society works due to the fact that the three orders of government are articulated, coordinated, and seek to maintain … the well-being that we all aspire to, but if something fails in that coordination of the public powers, the situation becomes complicated,” he said.

With reports from El Sol de México, Reforma and TV Azteca