Mexico ( Vigilantes Kill Man Who Gunned Down 5 in Mexico ) Vigilante Justice

 

MORELIA, Mexico – Vigilantes in the western Mexican state of Michoacan killed a peasant over the weekend who had gunned down his wife, mother-in-law, a brother-in-law and two neighbors, prosecutors said.

The peasant, identified only as Prospero N., had been having problems with his wife’s family over land and started drinking on Saturday afternoon in the village of El Molinillo, the Michoacan Attorney General’s Office said.

The man returned home, where he found his wife, Nancy Guadalupe Guzman, 17, his mother-in-law, Esther Guzman Mora, and brother-in-law, Antonio Guzman, and opened fire on them with a pistol, the AG’s office said.

The peasant ran out of the house and fired shots at neighbors Rodolfo Cisneros Hernandez and Gabriel Rangel Torres, the AG’s office said.

Cisneros Hernandez died at the scene and Rangel Torres was pronounced dead while being transported to a clinic, prosecutors said.

The suspect encountered a group of vigilantes who were searching for drug traffickers in the village of Los Chirimoyos and fired shots at them.

The vigilantes killed the suspect and then learned that he had murdered five people, prosecutors said.

AG’s office investigators transported the six bodies to the coroner’s office, where autopsies were performed, officials said.

The first vigilante group was formed in Michoacan on Feb. 24, 2013, to fight the Caballeros Templarios drug cartel.

The federal government deployed soldiers and police in Michoacan on Jan. 13 in an effort to end the wave of drug-related violence in the state