Gunmen kill 12 people in Mexico bar attack, leaving others wounded, President says – NBC News
SAN ANGELO, Texas – Gunmen dressed as members of the country’s most powerful law enforcement agency opened fire on a Mexican restaurant in the city of San Antonio, killing 12 people and injuring 14 others, the country’s president said on social media Sunday.
In the photo, which was posted late Saturday on the President’s Twitter account, gunmen wearing what appears to be black helmets stand with their guns pointed at the restaurant’s door in the center of the screen while they smoke from a gun. The men are brandishing what could be guns, but they do not appear to be firing them, the images appear to show, and the restaurant appears to be open.
In a message posted on Facebook Sunday morning, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, known by his initials as AMLO, said that “there are not enough words to thank my government and the authorities for the swift response to avoid a tragic massacre like the one in San Antonio.”
The photo was published on a government social media account Saturday morning.
The attack was the deadliest on foreign soil since a similar assault at the Eagles’ Nest Mexican restaurant in Mexico City in December 2014 killed nearly 40 people.
San Antonio police spokeswoman Christine Wessellt said Sunday afternoon that the attack had left 12 dead and 14 others in critical condition. She said the number of injured had not yet been determined, and that police were still trying to identify those missing.
She said the motive for the attack was not yet known.
The President’s Facebook post said that Lopez Obrador had spoken by phone with his Mexican counterpart, President Enrique Peña Nieto, who said Mexico’s armed forces would lead the investigation.
According to the president’s text, at least 14 members of the state police special task force were among the dead; another 11 state police officers were wounded in the attack, including one officer killed in a separate attack on Friday, which was also linked to the San Antonio restaurant. Nine civilians were wounded in that attack. Four people died in a shooting Saturday night at a bar in downtown San Antonio, which is also linked to the San Antonio attack.
On Friday night, seven people were killed in a shooting at a bar in downtown San Antonio after a mass shooting in a restaurant in the Mexican border city of Tijuana that left 23 dead.
The attack was the last one involving a state police special task force since