Gunmen kill 12 people in Mexico bar attack
A man was killed and 12 more were injured in an attack at a bar in Mexico City late Saturday, officials said.
The attackers were reportedly armed and shot first, said the government’s president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who said the armed men were arrested and at one point tried to escape with the owner of the bar, which was apparently targeted because of its mixed-race clientele.
He said the victims were mostly from the country’s minority groups. The victim from the majority community has been identified as 23-year-old Isabella Ruiz, the president said.
“I condemn this atrocious attack. I condemn the fact that we are dealing with a group of people who want to use the tools of terror that our country has, and for them it is not enough to kill individuals, they need to cause us harm and in order to do so they attack a place of leisure, where all the people of our country feel comfortable, in which our hearts can be in peace,” the president said.
Lopez Obrador said the bar was targeted because it was a popular place and it had mixed-race and black customers. He said that the attackers wanted to “dish them out of the place” because of their skin color.
“We are going to get them, we are going to do everything that is possible to do so. To get them out of this country, to get them out, we are going to do whatever we can,” Lopez Obrador said in an interview with local reporters.
Lopez Obrador said that the government had offered to finance the search for the gunmen and the cost of the damages, estimated to be around $3.5 million US, will be borne by the bar and its owner, who has not yet been named.
He expressed confidence that their arrest would soon follow.
Lopez Obrador later said the assailants were arrested and that they were wearing bulletproof vests when taken into custody. A man identified as one of the suspects said that he was one of the attackers.
The Mexican Interior