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<h6><span style="color: #000000;"><strong>Mexico federal security agents arrest town&#8217;s entire police force of 28 officers &#8216;over murder of a mayoral candidate&#8217;<br />
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<h6><span style="color: #000000;"><strong>Internal affairs quizzed all police officers in Ocampo, in </strong><strong>the Mexican state of Michoacan,- on </strong><strong> &#8216;code of conduct&#8217; investigation</strong></span></h6>
<h6><span style="color: #000000;"><strong>Local mayoral candidate Fernando Angeles Juarez, 64, was gunned down outside his home on Thursday</strong></span></h6>
<h6><span style="color: #000000;"><strong>Ocampo police stopped federal agents from arresting murder suspect in armed standoff</strong></span></h6>
<h6><span style="color: #000000;"><strong>Federal reinforcements effected the arrest the next day and rounded up all the officers</strong></span></h6>
<h6><span style="color: #000000;"><strong>Mr Juarez is the third candidate in his state to be murdered in 10 days</strong></span></h6>
<h6><span style="color: #000000;"><strong>A fourth politician Oscar Gomez Lucatero was assassinated within 24 hours of the death of Fernando Juarez<br />
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<h6><span style="color: #000000;"><strong>The men were running for mayor in two different towns within the Mexican state of Michoacan, allegedly a haven for drug cartels </strong></span></h6>
<h6><span style="color: #000000;"><strong>So far 122 candidates have been killed ahead of the July 1 elections, the most ever in Mexico</strong></span><span style="color: #000000;"> </span></h6>
<p><img class="alignnone wp-image-295195" src="https://konniemoments.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Police-in-the-Mexican-city-of-Ocampo-arrested-1.png" alt="Police in the Mexican city of Ocampo arrested 1.png" width="659" height="375" /><strong>The entire police force in the city of Ocampo seen lined up, after the officers was cuffed, disarmed, and interrogated by internal affairs officials of the Mexican Secretariat of Public Security</strong></div>
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<div class="article-text wide ">An entire police force of 28 officers has been arrested over the murder of a mayoral candidate in western Mexico.</p>
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<p class="mol-para-with-font">Each officer from the town of Ocampo was cuffed, disarmed, and interrogated by internal affairs officials of the Mexican Secretariat of Public Security.<br />
They are being investigated for possible involvement in the assassination of local mayoral candidate Fernando Angeles Juarez on Thursday.</p>
<h6 class="mol-para-with-font"><strong><img class="alignnone wp-image-295197" src="https://konniemoments.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Fernando-Angeles-Juarez-1.png" alt=" Fernando Angeles Juarez 1.png" width="657" height="638" />Fernando Angeles Juarez, a contestant in the Ocampo mayoral race was gunned down outside his home on Thursday. His death has brought federal security investigating the town&#8217;s police dept<br />
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<h6 class="imageCaption"><strong><img class="alignnone wp-image-295196" src="https://konniemoments.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Police-officers-in-Ocampo-Mexico-arrested-3.png" alt="Police officers in Ocampo, Mexico arrested 3.png" width="685" height="1062" />Law men under fire: In the town of Ocampo in western Mexico, the entire police force of 28 officers has been arrested over the murder of a mayoral candidate, </strong><strong>Fernando Angeles Juarez </strong></h6>
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<p class="imageCaption">Each officer was cuffed, disarmed, and interrogated by internal affairs officials of the Mexican Secretariat of Public Security</p>
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<p class="imageCaption">The 64-year-old anti-corruption campaigner was gunned down outside his home in Ocampo by unknown shooters.<br />
Photos in local media show the officers lined on the floor lying face down with their hands cuffed behind their backs.<br />
They were officially being investigated for potential violations of the police code of conduct but authorities didn&#8217;t give more details.</p>
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<h6 class="imageCaption"><img class="alignnone wp-image-295204" src="https://konniemoments.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Fernando-Angeles-Juarez-left-and-Oscar-Gomez-Lucatero-right-2.png" alt="Fernando Angeles Juarez [left], and Oscar Gomez Lucatero [right] 2" width="658" height="526" /><strong>Fernando Angeles Juarez [left], and Oscar Gomez Lucatero right], two politicians running for mayorships in the Mexican state of Michoacan, last week were shot to death within 24 hours of each other</strong></h6>
<p class="mol-para-with-font">Maldonado denied the accusation in a Facebook post, saying he feels for Gomez Lucatero&#8217;s family though.<br />
Aguililla is an extensive but sparsely populated mountain township where drug gangs and vigilantes have been active.<br />
And early Thursday, the mayoral candidate for the leftist Democratic Revolution Party was killed in Ocampo, also in Michoacan.His party issued a statement saying that Fernando Angeles Juarez was assassinated, and called on the government to provide protection for people running in the July 1 elections.<br />
Ocampo is a rural township about 95 miles west of Mexico City best known for the Monarch butterfly wintering grounds that occupy part of the mountainous municipality. It also been plagued by illegal logging and gangs.<br />
Mr Juarez was the third politician to be killed in the state of Michoacan in 10 days, and within 24 hours of one of them, Omar Gomez Lucatero.<br />
More than 100 politicians have been murdered in Mexico ahead of next week&#8217;s general election on July 1.<br />
Ocampo&#8217;s 28 police and the local public security secretary were arrested by federal forces on Sunday morning.</p>
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<h6 class="mobile-gallery-icon"><img class="alignnone wp-image-295198" src="https://konniemoments.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Fernando-Angeles-Juarezs-funeral-in-Ocampo-June-21.png" alt="Fernando Angeles Juarez's funeral in Ocampo, June 21.png" width="689" height="449" /><strong>After local mayoral candidate Fernando Angeles Juarez, was gunned down outside his home, his relatives carry his coffin during his funeral in Ocampo on June 21</strong></h6>
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<p class="mol-para-with-font">&#8216;All of the officers are being interviewed in accordance with the law,&#8217; a secretariat of Public Security statement said.<br />
Following Mr Juarez&#8217;s murder, local authorities accused Ocampo&#8217;s public security secretary Oscar Gonzalez Garcia of being involved.<br />
Local police officers prevented federal agents from arresting him on Saturday, leading to a standoff that saw the Federales back down.<br />
They returned with reinforcements the next morning and detained Mr Garcia and the police who protected him.<br />
Prosecutors suspect he and the officers of being connected to organised crime groups in Michoacan.<br />
Ocampo is a rural township about 95 miles west of Mexico City best known for the Monarch butterfly wintering grounds that occupy part of the mountainous municipality. It also been plagued by illegal logging and gangs.<br />
Fernando Juarez was running for mayor of the town on the platform of the state&#8217;s governing Democratic Revolution Party.</p>
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<h6 class="imageCaption"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-295203" src="https://konniemoments.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Fernando-Angeles-Juarez-2.png" alt="Fernando Angeles Juarez 2.png" width="634" height="406" /><strong>Fernando Juarez [photo, speaking at a campaign rally], was the third while Gomez Lucatero was the fourth politician to be killed in the state of Michoacan in 10 days and one of more than 120 ahead of the July 1 election</strong></h6>
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<h6><strong><img class="alignnone wp-image-295208" src="https://konniemoments.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Fellow-candidate-Oscar-Gomez-Lucatero-1.png" alt="Fellow candidate Oscar Gomez Lucatero 1.png" width="648" height="1061" /></strong><strong>Another candidate Oscar Gomez Lucatero [photo] was killed on the same day as Juarez, with his family pointing to his opponent in the murder</strong></h6>
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<p class="mol-para-with-font">His party confirmed the assassination and called on the government to provide protection for election candidates.<br />
Mr Juarez was just the latest victim in Mexico&#8217;s bloodiest-ever election campaign that has claimed the lives of more than 120 candidates, almost all in local contests.<br />
Mr Lucatero was shot dead in the conflict-ridden rural town of Aguililla, where drug gangs and vigilantes are rampant, on the same day as Mr Juarez.<br />
His nephew, in a tearful video message, claimed he had recently been intimidated by an armed group, and blamed the murder on his uncle&#8217;s opponent Osvaldo Maldonado, who quickly denied involvement.<br />
Mexican security analyst Alejandro Hope said the level of violence could be explained in part by the record number of elections.<br />
Gomez Lucatero&#8217;s tearful nephew posted a video online pointing at political opponent Osvaldo Maldonado, for his uncle&#8217;s murder. Maldonado denied the accusation in a Facebook post on Thursday</p>
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<h6 class="imageCaption"><img class="alignnone wp-image-295202" src="https://konniemoments.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Oscar-Gomez-Lucateros-nephew-1.png" alt="Oscar Gomez Lucatero's nephew 1.png" width="663" height="570" /><strong>Gomez Lucatero&#8217;s nephew said in a tearful video that the day before his murder, a group of armed men came to his house to intimidate him </strong></h6>
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<h6 class="mol-para-with-font"><strong><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-295207" src="https://konniemoments.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Osvaldo-Maldonado-1.jpg" alt="Osvaldo Maldonado 1" width="634" height="634" />Mayoral candidate Oscar Gomez Lucatero&#8217;s nephew has publicly accused his uncle&#8217;s opponent Osvaldo Maldonado [photo], in his assassination. Maldonado has denied the allegations<br />
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<p class="mol-para-with-font">With more than 3,400 local, state and federal posts at stake, there are more than 15,000 candidates hitting the campaign trail.<br />
&#8216;Secondly, this speaks to the changes in criminal groups. With the evolution of crime, it becomes much more important to gain control over territory, over local governments,&#8217; he said, a local security analyst said.<br />
In crimes like fuel theft, for example, local police can be valuable allies to act as look outs or cover up for illegal pipeline taps and illicit fuel warehouses.<br />
Some gangs have even taken to extorting money from local governments by forcing them to sign inflated public works contracts.<br />
Those concerns could lead the gangs to kill a candidate who rivals their favorite, or ones who refuse their demands.<br />
Mexico is also more violent than it has been in decades with 25,339 people murdered last year.<br />
More than 200,000 people have been killed since the government launched its militarised offensive against drug traffickers in 2006.</p>
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Mexican authorities arrest town’s entire police force ‘over murder of a mayoral candidate’ amid country’s bloodiest election campaign – 122 political assassinations leading to July 1 polls
