Police chief, city councilman killed in northern Mexico

ASSOCIATED PRESS

MONTERREY, Mexico – A police chief and a councilman were shot and killed Thursday in a Mexican border state where drug-fueled violence has increased and a string of law enforcement officers have been killed.

Police chief Baltazar Gomez and Osvaldo Rodriguez, both of the Monterrey suburb of Santa Catarina, were killed just after midnight by a gunman who followed them inside a convenience store where they had gone after attending a funeral, police said. A Santa Catarina city councilwoman accompanying the men was wounded.

Gomez, who had been police chief for three weeks, was the sixth law enforcement official killed this year in Nuevo Leon state, across the border from Texas.