At least 9 dead in shooting clashes in Mexico’s Morelos state

Mexico City: At least nine people were killed and four others wounded in a series of shooting clashes Monday morning in the city of Cuernavaca, capital of the central Mexican state of Morelos, authorities said.
The Cuernavaca Secretariat of Citizen Protection and Assistance reported in a statement that among the dead were two police officers who responded to a call reporting a shooting attack against two civilians who were drinking alcohol in the street.
It explained that the events began in the Altavista neighborhood, “where a group of armed men aboard three vehicles … attacked some civilians who were drinking in the street and tried to take another one; the result was one person was killed and another was injured.”
When the police arrived, they were met with gunfire, which initiated a chase of the alleged aggressors through several neighborhoods and led to “securing the Cherokee van with a dead driver and a motorcycle with an injured driver,” the statement read.
“Unfortunately in the line of duty two policemen were injured and unfortunately two (others) lost their lives,” it said.
Another van was secured in the Tlaltenango neighborhood, “with five civilians aboard, armed with vests and a communication radio, all dead,” the statement added.