On 19 March 2015, a convoy of the National Gendarmerie, a subdivision of the Mexican Federal Police (PF), was ambushed by gunmen of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), 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. The motives behind the ambush remain unclear, but many have been proposed, including one that suggests that the gunmen ambushed the police to protect their leader, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes (alias "El Mencho"), who was reportedly in the vicinity.
Over the years, multiple suspects have been arrested, including high-ranking members of El Mencho's security group and officers from Ocotlán's municipal police force. Authorities believe the policemen arrested worked for the CJNG and aided them during the ambush. Law enforcement presence in Ocotlán increased after the ambush, but violent confrontations between the CJNG and security forces continued throughout the rest of 2015 in Jalisco and neighboring states.
Background and possible motives The attack was one of the deadliest incidents against security forces during the presidency of Enrique Peña Nieto (2012–2018), and the first and deadliest against the National Gendarmerie (es) – at that time the newest police force in Mexico – in the ongoing Mexican drug war (2006–present). In addition, the attack was the third deadliest against any part of the Mexican Federal Police (PF) force since 2006. The National Gendarmerie was created on 22August 2014 by Peña Nieto to combat crime in Mexico. All of the officers had received training from the Army and had not been part of any other police force prior to joining. The cadets were mostly young, college-educated recruits, and they were recruited without previous police training under the rationale that this prevented corruption in the National Gendarmerie's ranks. The commanders of the units were trained by police forces in the United States, Colombia, Chile, Spain, and France. The force was initially made up of 5,000 officers, and was a subdivision of the PF, which consisted of roughly 36,000 members when the National Gendarmerie was created. Though members were required to have military training, the National Gendarmerie was intended to be a civil police force capable of a rapid response to crime.
Since late November 2014, around 300 National Gendarmerie officials had been stationed in Ocotlán to safeguard the borders of Jalisco–Michoacán and Jalisco–Guanajuato, and prevent the incursion of the Knights Templar Cartel, a Michoacán-based criminal group and a rival gang to the CJNG. They conducted patrols after there were reports of cargo theft in the region. Weeks prior to the ambush, law enforcement officers carried out several covert operations in Ocotlán and the entire Ciénega area. According to intelligence reports, they had information that the suspected CJNG leader, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes (alias "El Mencho"), was in the area. On the day of the attack, the police reportedly had information that El Mencho was in a meeting in Oxnard street, in the neighborhood where the attack occurred. Investigators believe that the CJNG carried out the attack to restrict the mobility of the security forces and allow El Mencho to escape from the area. They also suspected that the CJNG planned the attack as a retaliation for attempted crackdowns against El Mencho, who became one of Mexico's most-wanted following the arrest of Servando Gómez Martínez (alias "La Tuta"), the suspected leader of the Knights Templar Cartel.
Besides the proposal that the PF was in the area to apprehend El Mencho, other sources suggested different motives. One version suggests that the policemen were in the neighborhood investigating a previous attack against the local police. Another account states the policemen were heading to a house in Centenario street. An account cited by a PF official stated that the attack was carried out because the CJNG was moving a large shipment of narcotics to Ocotlán and wanted to prevent the police from intervening. Another report suggests that the CJNG was in the area for a meeting with municipal policemen from Ocotlán. After the meeting went wrong, the policemen called the PF as reinforcements, and the CJNG did the same with their gunmen; when the PF reached the scene, the shootout reportedly broke out. An account cited by federal government sources suggests that the policemen were ambushed after one of the senior officers in the convoy noticed that a woman was being abused by a man. When the policemen got out of their vehicles and tried to stop the man, they noticed he was armed and guarded by a large number of gunmen, who outnumbered them; the shootout reportedly broke out after this.
The attack set a precedent for the PF, as it had not recorded casualties in Jalisco prior to the attack. According to government sources, the PF had two deadlier attacks prior to the incident in Ocotlán: on 27May 2008 in Culiacán, Sinaloa, 8 PF officers were killed in a shootout with gunmen from the Beltrán Leyva Cartel; on 13July 2009 in La Huacana, Michoacán, 12 PF officers were killed by La Familia Michoacana. However, the attack in Ocotlán demonstrated to police that the manpower and level of coordination of the CJNG was greater than they had expected. Investigators analyzed the offensive actions of the CJNG after the Ocotlán incident, and drew comparisons with their modus operandi during the 6April 2015 attack that left 15 PF officers dead in San Sebastián del Oeste. They concluded that in their ambushes against security forces, the CJNG was employing a similar strategy. The CJNG would cut off their victim's vehicles from the road, have numerical superiority in foot soldiers and vehicles, and use a large arsenal of weapons and explosives to attack and overwhelm security forces.
Ambush and shootout
At 9:15p.m. on 19March 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.
Immediate reactions Immediately after the shootout ended, the neighborhood was flooded with police officers and ambulances. Only two Televisa reporters and one cameraman were able to reach the ambush scene to report what occurred on national television, but an officer warned them to stay away from the scene because law enforcement was on high alert for a further attack. Local people who were on their way home were not able to get there due to several police roadblocks. The Mexican Red Cross team in Ocotlán said that fireworks from a festival the previous night at the San José Church, a congregation close to where the ambush occurred, had masked the gunfire noises from the ambush. The head of the Red Cross said his team was not able to provide first aid for an attack of this scale, hence they had contacted the Red Cross in Guadalajara to provide assistance. Through the night, police checkpoints were set up in Ocotlán, and at least two military helicopters flew over the neighborhood for several hours. Electricity supply and telephone service was cut off for the entire night because lightpoles had been damaged by the gunfire.
On 20May, the PF, Army, PGR, and Jalisco state authorities conducted an investigation at the scene and patrolled the vicinity before leaving without making an official announcement. Information about the attack continued to only be provided by media outlets and civilians, who shared images of the corpses, the property damage, and the bloodstained streets on social media. Municipal policemen also patrolled Ocotlán in police cars or on motorcycles or bicycles. Neighbors highlighted the fact that the local policemen were unusually calm and were not wearing bullet-proof vests. They stated that the PF, on the other hand, looked nervous. Others said they saw several CJNG scouts monitoring the area and passing on information to their superiors regarding the presence and mobility of law enforcement personnel.