AMLO to investigate US-Mexico border killings of innocents | Al Jazeera

Mexico’s president pledged to investigate the border shootings that left 19 dead during the weekend, even as the latest homicide figures showed a rebound in killings nationwide.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said evidence indicated that 15 of the victims were innocent bystanders. The other four dead were suspected gunmen from a group that drove into the northern border city of Reynosa and opened fire indiscriminately.

“Everything indicates that it was not a confrontation, but rather a commando that shot people who were not involved in any conflict,” López Obrador said.

Reynosa is located across the border from McAllen, Texas, and has been the scene of fighting between factions of the Gulf cartel. But those disputes usually target rival gunmen or security forces. The dead in the Saturday attack included taxi drivers, workers and a nursing student.

Authorities are still investigating the motive, though in the past, drug cartels have sometimes used random killings of civilians to turn up the heat on rival gangs or intimidate local authorities.