Gunmen Kill Chief of Mexico’s Police

MEXICO CITY — Gunmen assassinated the acting chief of Mexico’s federal police early Thursday morning in the most brazen attack so far in the year-and-a-half-old struggle between the government and organized crime gangs.

Mexican police have been under constant attack since President Felipe Calderón took office in December 2007 and launched an offensive against drug cartels who had corrupted the municipal police forces and local officials in several towns along the border and on both coasts.

Since then, Mr. Calderón has sent thousands of federal agents and troops into those areas to establish law and order, provoking a powerful backlash from drug cartels, who have killed some 200 officers, among them at least 30 federal agents.

The police chief, Edgar Millán Gómez, was ambushed by several men wearing rubber gloves and carrying weapons as he entered his apartment building in the Guerrero neighborhood of Mexico City with two bodyguards at 2:30 a.m. He was hit nine times in the chest and one hand. He died a few hours later at Metropolitan Hospital.