Mayor, police officer murdered in southern Mexico

Mexico City, Mar 25 (EFE).- The mayor of the city of San Juan Mixtepec and a municipal police officer were ambushed and murdered over the weekend in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, state officials said.

Feliciano Martinez Bautista and officer Policarpo Remigio Rojas were driving through the city when they were attacked and killed around 2:30 a.m. Sunday, the Oaxaca state government said.

The mayor was shot in the head and the officer was hit in the chest, officials said, adding that the vehicle rolled over after the attack.

The bodies were taken to the morgue in Santiago Juxtlahuaca, where autopsies will be conducted.

The investigation is being handled by Victor Alonso Altamirano, the prosecutor responsible for the Mixteca region, the state government said.

At least 30 mayors and more than 1,200 other municipal officials were murdered by organized crime groups during the administration of former President Felipe Calderon, the National Federation of Mexican Cities said.

The war on drugs launched by Calderon, who was in office from 2006 to 2012, left about 70,000 people dead in Mexico, officials say.

Calderon deployed thousands of soldiers and Federal Police officers across the country to fight drug cartels, which infiltrated many state and municipal police departments.

Mexican press tallies estimated that about 12,000 people died in violent incidents linked to organized crime groups in 2012.

A total of 1,104 people died in violent incidents in Mexico in January, the government said.

Some 914 drug-related murders occurred in Mexico in February, the government said in a recent report.

More than 3,100 people have been killed in drug-related violence since President Enrique Peña Nieto took office on Dec. 1.