page_title: 2015 Ocotlán ambush
section_title: Ambush and shootout
hierarchical_section_title: 2015 Ocotlán ambush / Ambush and shootout
caption_attribution_description: Español: Municipio de Jalisco. Elaboración propia con el programa QGIS versión 2.8.2 Wien y con información del SCINCE 2010 versión 05/2013English: Municipality of Jalisco. Prepared with the software QGIS version 2.8.2 Wien &amp; with information of SCINCE 2010 version 05/2013
context_page_description: On 19 March 2015, a convoy of the National Gendarmerie, a subdivision of the Mexican Federal Police, was ambushed by gunmen of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, a criminal group based in Jalisco, Mexico. The attack occurred in a residential neighborhood in Ocotlán, Jalisco. Five policemen, four CJNG gunmen, and two civilian bystanders were killed. According to police reports, as the PF convoy pulled up next to a parked vehicle, gunmen shot at them from the vehicle and from rooftops. The police attempted to shield themselves using their patrol cars, but reinforcements from the CJNG arrived at the scene and overwhelmed them. The shootout lasted between thirty minutes to two hours before the CJNG fled the scene.
  The attack was one of the deadliest incidents against security forces during the administration of President Enrique Peña Nieto, and the first and deadliest against the National Gendarmerie, at that time the newest police force in Mexico, in the ongoing Mexican Drug War. The attack made national headlines and prompted reactions from the highest levels of the Mexican government.
context_section_description: At 9:15 p.m. on 19 March 2015, seven vehicles from the National Gendarmerie drove through a street in the La Mascota neighborhood of Ocotlán, Jalisco. As one of the police vehicles moved alongside a white car parked near the sidewalk, several gunmen from that vehicle began shooting at the police officers with high-caliber rifles. Other gunmen reportedly shot at the officers from rooftops. The ambush forced the policemen to take cover, using their vehicles as shields while they prepared to return fire. However, as the policemen tried to protect themselves from the gunfire, twelve vehicles with additional gunmen arrived at the scene and began attacking them from several directions. In total around 40 CJNG gunmen participated in the attack. The shootout lasted between thirty minutes and two hours. It extended to nearby streets as the gunmen continued to fire their weapons while attempting the flee the scene. Eleven people were killed in the attack: five of them were officers from the National Gendarmerie; four were from the CJNG; and two were civilian bystanders who were killed in the crossfire. Five officers were wounded, though only one of them was reportedly in a serious condition; all of them were hospitalized.
  During the shootout, a person in the neighborhood recorded the sound of the gunfire for approximately a minute-and-a-half. After the shootout, Mexican authorities seized eighteen assault rifles, ten handguns, two fragmentation grenades, and five vehicles used by the perpetrators. The Jalisco attorney general, Luis Carlos Nájera Gutiérrez de Velasco, said that twenty-nine vehicles and thirty-one houses in the neighborhood were damaged by the gunfire. Seven of the twenty-nine vehicles damaged were owned by the National Gendarmerie, seventeen were owned by civilians, two were motorcycles, and three had allegedly been used by the gunmen. The damaged vehicles were removed from the neighborhood the next day. The street where the attack took place had several large bloodstains from those killed and wounded. According to investigators from the Jalisco Institute of Forensic Sciences (IJCF), over 2,000 bullet casings were found at the scene, most of them from high-caliber rifles. The investigation and evidence collection at the scene was first conducted by the Government of Jalisco, but the case was transferred to federal jurisdiction and given to Mexico's Attorney General's Office (PGR).
  The government did not immediately state which criminal group it believed was responsible for the attack. The Jalisco State Police and the Mexican Army arrived in Ocotlán after the attack and conducted a search along the area's dirt roads and highways close to the border with Michoacán, one of the states adjacent to Jalisco, in an attempt to locate those responsible. Law enforcement explained that the Jalisco State Police took longer than usual to arrive at the scene after the National Gendarmerie called them for support because they were at the Federal Social Readaptation Center No. 2 (also known as "Puente Grande"), a maximum-security prison in Jalisco, carrying out an inspection.
caption: Location of Ocotlán, Jalisco (in green), where the ambush took place
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