Group turned away at Mexican holiday party returned with gunmen killing 11, say investigators

Mexico City, December 20

Survivors of a Sunday massacre in central Mexico told investigators that a group of people turned away from a holiday party returned later with gunmen who killed 11 and wounded 14, authorities said on Tuesday.

Navigio Agustín Gallardo Romero, a Guanajuato state prosecutor, said nine men and two women were killed. The state prosecutor’s office had revised the death toll down to 11 Monday night from 12, explaining that there was confusion with a victim from a separate case at the hospital.

Authorities recovered shells from seven different guns at the scene, Gallardo said in a recorded video message. He said investigators are focusing on a group that operates in the area without providing more detail.

Families carried the caskets of some of the victims through the streets of Salvatierra on Tuesday.

Guanajuato has been the scene of bloody turf battles between the Jalisco cartel and local gangs backed by the Sinaloa cartel. The state has long had the highest number of homicides in Mexico.

On Monday, Mexico’s President Andres Manuel López Obrador called for Guanajuato’s state prosecutor to step down.