Police Identify 6 as Part of Mob

Investigators have identified at least six people as key members of a mob that set two federal agents on fire in the belief that they were kidnappers, federal authorities said Thursday.

Among those arrested in the vigilante slayings was a 16-year-old boy, Deputy Atty. Gen. Gilberto Higuera said at a news conference. He would not confirm radio and newspaper reports that the youngster started the fires.

The six -- whose identities were not reported -- were among 31 people captured during a massive raid on San Juan Ixtayopan, a town on Mexico City’s outskirts where dozens of residents severely beat three plainclothes agents Tuesday, then burned two of them alive, Higuera said.

Before the news conference, Atty. Gen. Rafael Macedo de la Concha met with President Vicente Fox in the presidential residence. When he emerged, he said Fox expressed shock and sadness about the mob killing and implored federal investigators to punish those behind it.

The slain agents had been on a stakeout near a neighborhood elementary school as part of an operation against drug dealing, police said, but a rumor spread that the men were kidnappers.

The slayings were aired hundreds of times on major Mexican television networks, horrifying viewers nationwide.

A similar case occurred Thursday. Authorities in Juliantla, a village outside the silver-mining town of Taxco in south-central Mexico, rescued three members of the judicial police force who were confronted by a trio of locals with rifles and pistols while milling around a kindergarten, said Maria de la Luz Solis, Juliantla’s justice of the peace.

Also Thursday, federal authorities belonging to the same agency as those killed expressed outrage that their superiors didn’t do more to save the lives of their colleagues.

About three hours passed between the time local news media reported problems and the time townsfolk killed the agents. Federal and city officials failed to get forces to the site in time.

Hundreds of federal officers halted work and staged protests outside their offices, demanding the resignation of the agency’s leaders, who they said had failed to give orders to rescue the policemen.

Some newspaper headlines demanded the resignation of Mexico City Police Chief Marcelo Ebrard, who had said that traffic and a lack of available forces prevented his men from reaching the site.