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CENTRAL AMERICA |
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Attacks
Leave 1 Police Officer Dead, 6 Wounded in
Guatemala
GUATEMALA CITY A National Civilian Police,
or PNC, officer was killed and six others
wounded in two attacks on official vehicles,
a police spokesman said on Sunday.
The attacks on police were staged by
organized crime groups reacting in this way
to the transfers we have made to
maximum-security prisons of their leaders,
a PNC spokesman said.
The first attack occurred Saturday afternoon
on a road in northern Guatemala, where
gunmen opened fire on a police car that
ordered them to stop, killing one officer
and seriously wounding another.
The gunmen wounded two other officers in a
long shootout some 20 kilometers (12.4
miles) from where the initial incident
occurred.
The second attack occurred Saturday night on
a highway north of Guatemala City, where
gunmen opened fire on a police patrol car,
seriously wounding three officers.
The attacks on the PNC, which have so far
left three officers dead and eight others
wounded, started Thursday, when officials
ordered the transfer of 18 dangerous inmates
to a maximum-security prison.
At least 15 attacks were foiled in different
parts of Guatemala City after the first four
incidents, Interior Minister Raul Velasquez
said.
On Sept. 7, a series of attacks on prison
guards and officials were launched after
inmates were transferred to a
maximum-security prison.
Guatemala has been plagued by a crime wave
that has driven the murder rate up to around
17 a day.
The more than 5,400 homicides reported last
year in Guatemala a nation of
approximately 13 million was nearly equal
to the number of murders in neighboring
Mexico, which has more than 100 million
inhabitants and is the scene of open warfare
among rival drug cartels.
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