Mexican authorities: Federal agents could have fired bullets that struck City Hall

Mexican authorities said the seven bullets that pierced the walls of El Paso City Hall on Tuesday could have been fired by Mexican federal agents. Federal police spokesman José Ramón Salinas said that six agents stopped a vehicle Monday afternoon to inspect it and that the driver and passengers attacked the agents. A shootout erupted, and a federal agent and a woman were killed. Salinas said the fact that the vehicle the agents had stopped was later found with bullet holes and blood showed that federal agents had fired shots. Salinas said these findings were preliminary because the shootout is still under investigation by the Chihuahua state attorney general's office. "The order is always to avoid firing, but the police officer is the one who makes the decision at the moment," Salinas said. Generally, criminals in Juárez have been using the AK-47 rifles, or what they call "cuerno de chivo," Spanish for goat's horn, because the ammunition clip curves like a horn. But Salinas said some federal police officers are also armed that type of gun. It fires a round that can easily reach El Paso from Juárez. No Mexican agency, however, is taking responsibility for the bullets that hit City Hall...more