Families of policemen Salvador González Quijano and Enrique Lemus Hinojosa cry during their last farewell

MEXICO CITY: A mysterious helicopter crash during Baja California's storied Baja 1000 off-road race set off a strange chain of events that left four people dead and two missing after a nighttime raid on a local morgue, officials said Thursday.
 
The unidentified helicopter had apparently been observing the early stages of the race about 100 kilometers (60 miles) west of the city of Ensenada on Tuesday when it slammed into the ground, killing two of four people aboard and injuring two others. Witnesses said the chopper may have become entangled in power lines.
 
Questions soon arose about the three passengers who'd been aboard, whom local media initially identified as cameramen filming the race. The pilot survived.
 
But Jaime Nieto, Ensenada's civil defense director, whose department responded to the crash, said the helicopter was a rental and had no connection with the race's sponsor. "We don't know what they were doing there," he said.
 
The two injured passengers were taken to a local hospital, and the dead were taken to the Ensenada morgue.
Prosecutors identified one of the dead as a high-ranking drug trafficker, apparently linked to the Tijuana-based Arellano Felix cartel. They could not confirm his name.

On Wednesday night, a commando of armed men in at least a dozen SUVs raided the morgue, kidnapped two morgue employees and fled with one of the corpses, apparently that of the reputed drug trafficker.
 
The convoy sped away on a rural road toward the border city of Tecate, but on the way encountered an Ensenada police patrol vehicle with two officers inside.
 
Both police officers were later found shot to death, said an Ensenada law enforcement official who was not authorized to speak on the record.
 
Mexican drug gangs have gone to great lengths in the past — attacking morgues, ambulances and cemeteries — to recover the bodies of fallen colleagues.
 
The Baja 1000 race is a notoriously rough 1,296-mile (2,074 kilometer) off-road event for motorcycles, four-wheel and all-terrain vehicles that started Tuesday and ends Friday with awards ceremonies in Cabo San Lucas.