Silvano Aureoles said on Twitter that the operation took place near the violent city of Apatzingan, in Michoacan, and was aimed at detaining "leaders of criminal cells". It was not immediately clear which gang was responsible.

"During the operation, an official helicopter which was supporting the patrol in area of difficult access was shot down," he said. "We lament the death of the pilot, three police officers and a police officer who was injured."

Last year, members of the Jalisco New Generation cartel, which operates in Michoacan and in the neighboring state of Jalisco, shot down an army helicopter, killing six soldiers.

Michoacan has one of the highest murder rates in Mexico after being overrun with drug gangs and armed vigilante groups. </s> A gang brought down a helicopter during a police operation in Mexico's troubled western state of Michoacan on Tuesday, killing the pilot and three officers, the governor said.

The aircraft was backing an operation to arrest leaders of criminal groups when the "official helicopter was downed" in an area with rough terrain, Governor Silvano Aureoles wrote on Twitter.

Another officer was injured in the crash.

Mr Aureoles did not say how the helicopter was shot down in the region of Apatzingan, a city located in Tierra Caliente (Hot Land), a region that has been beset by drug violence and vigilante justice for years.

"In accordance to the responsibility to protect citizens, the state and federation won't give up in the frontal fight against crime," the governor wrote. </s> MEXICO CITY, Sept 6 (Reuters) - Suspected gang members shot down a helicopter in a clash with police in the dangerous western Mexico state of Sinaloa on Tuesday, killing four people, the state's governor said.

Silvano Aureoles, the governor of Michoacan state, said on Twitter that the operation took place near the violent city of Apatzingan, and was aimed at detaining "leaders of criminal cells". It was not immediately which gang was responsible.

"During the operation, an official helicopter which was supporting the patrol in area of difficult access was shot down," he said. "We lament the death of the pilot, three police officers and a police officer who was injured." (Reporting by Gabriel Stargardter, Adriana Barrera and Lizbeth Diaz; Editing by Simon Gardner) </s> MEXICO CITY, Sept 6 (Reuters) - Suspected gang members shot down a helicopter in a clash with police in restive western Mexico on Tuesday, killing four people, the governor of the state of Michoacan said.

Silvano Aureoles said on Twitter that the operation took place near the violent city of Apatzingan, in Michoacan, and was aimed at detaining "leaders of criminal cells". It was not immediately clear which gang was responsible.

"During the operation, an official helicopter which was supporting the patrol in area of difficult access was shot down," he said. "We lament the death of the pilot, three police officers and a police officer who was injured."

Last year, members of the Jalisco New Generation cartel, which operates in Michoacan and in the neighboring state of Jalisco, shot down an army helicopter, killing six soldiers.

Michoacan has one of the highest murder rates in Mexico after being overrun with drug gangs and armed vigilante groups. (Reporting by Gabriel Stargardter, Adriana Barrera and Lizbeth Diaz; Editing by Simon Gardner) </s> Image copyright AP Image caption Firefighters recovered four bodies from the wreckage of the aircraft

Four police officers have died after their helicopter crashed over Rio de Janeiro's notorious City of God favela.

In video footage of the crash, sustained gunfire can be heard before the helicopter drops from the sky, narrowly missing a main road.

The helicopter was giving support to a police operation against gangs in the favela, according to police.

Police reportedly began a large scale operation on Sunday in western Rio, with arrests and seizures of drugs.

'Fell in a ditch'

There had been several clashes during Saturday between police and criminal gangs operating in the City of God favela area.

Firefighters removed the bodies of the victims from the wreckage, which could be seen in the footage crumpled and smoking.

A police spokesman said that forensics officers were examining the wreckage to determine the cause of the crash.

Image copyright Reuters Image caption Police had been carrying out anti-drugs operations on Saturday in the City of God favela

One man who saw the incident, Thiago Duarte, told Associated Press: "We were here watching the shooting in the woods... Suddenly a friend shouted 'the bullets reached the helicopter, it's going to come down!'

"It was clear that [the pilot] was trying to do everything to avoid falling over the shanty town or on the expressway, so it turned back and fell into the ditch."

On Sunday, police backed by an armoured vehicle carried out further operations, with at least two people arrested, another injured and a number of drugs seized.

Rio state security secretary Roberto Sa said police were investigating a territorial dispute between members of two favelas in western Rio.

If the helicopter was shot down by gang members, it would not be a first for the city, which hosted the 2016 Olympics.

In 2009, drug traffickers opened fire on a police helicopter, causing it to explode and crash land on a football pitch, killing both pilots.

Violence has been on the rise in Rio over the past two years following the failure of a 2010 programme to rid the favelas of drug gangs.

A total of 3,649 murders were reported in 2016 up until the end of September, a rise of almost 18% on the same period last year. </s> Footage from social media shows a police helicopter getting into difficulty after being shot at while flying over a Rio de Janeiro slum known as City of God. The helicopter crashed, killing four officers on board, although it is not yet clear whether the gunfire was the direct cause of the crash </s> MEXICO CITY — State police have detained and disarmed the entire police force of a town in western Mexico where a mayoral candidate was killed on Thursday.

Video of the detention aired by local media showed uniformed officers hitting each other as gunshots go off in the background.

The Michoacán state police force said, "All the officers of the Ocampo municipal police force were detained for an internal affairs investigation."

In statements on its Twitter account Sunday, the state police department did not directly tie the detentions to the Thursday killing of Fernando Ángeles Juárez, the mayoral candidate for the leftist Democratic Revolution Party. He was killed in Ocampo, Michoacán, on Thursday.

Ángeles Juárez is just one of at least 18 candidates killed so far in campaigns leading up to the July 1 elections. Just last week, another mayoral candidate was also gunned down in the conflict-ridden rural town of Aguililla in Michoacán.

Michoacán Gov. Silvano Aureoles vowed to catch those responsible for killing candidate Omar Gómez Lucatero.

Almost all of the 18 candidates killed across the country so far have been running for local posts in the July 1 elections, which will also decide the presidency, governorships and Congress. Other politicians who were considering a run have been killed before they could even register as candidates. The killings have particularly hit states like Michoacán, Guerrero and Oaxaca.

Mexican security analyst Alejandro Hope said that in part, the level of violence against candidates can be explained by “simple mathematics”: There are far more elections being held simultaneously than ever before in Mexico. With more than 3,400 local, state and federal posts at stake, there are more than 15,000 candidates hitting the campaign trail.

“Secondly, this speaks to the changes in criminal groups,” Hope said, noting that drug cartels have expanded into extortion, fuel theft and other crimes. “With the evolution of crime, it becomes much more important to gain control over territory, over local governments.”

In crimes like fuel theft, for example, local police can be valuable allies to act as lookouts or cover up for illegal pipeline taps and illicit fuel warehouses. And some gangs have even taken to extorting money from local governments by forcing them to sign inflated public works contracts.

Those concerns could lead the gangs to kill a candidate who rivals their favorite, or to kill candidates who refuse their demands.

Finally, Hope noted, “there has been a breakdown in the management of disputes,” largely in rural areas, where turf wars between rival gangs have heated up, even as the government has become overextended and less able to intervene. </s> [BBC] Mexican police have found the bodies of nine people hanging from a bridge and seven more corpses hacked up and dumped on the road.

The massacre in the city of Uruapan in the western Michoacán state is thought to be gang-related, prosecutors say.

A banner hanging from the bridge reportedly bore the initials of one of Mexico’s most powerful drug cartels.

Criminals have previously hung the bodies of their murdered victims in public to intimidate rival gangs.

“There is a turf war between the [local] cells of different criminal groups,” state prosecutor Adrian López told reporters at a news conference on Thursday.

Mr López said the gangs, which he did not name, are “fighting for territorial control over the production, distribution and consumption of drugs”. </s> MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - At least eight suspected gang members died on Thursday in a gun battle with Mexican marines in Mexico City, which has largely been spared the worst of the country's drug violence.

Mexico's Navy said in statement that a patrol of marines in Tlahuac, in the southeastern part of the capital, was attacked by suspected gang members, sparking the gunfight. The Navy said that among the dead was Felipe de Jesus Luna, whom it described as the head of a violent criminal organisation.

The Navy said the gangsters were suspected of drug dealing, extortion, murder and kidnapping. It did not say if any of the marines were injured.

Maries were in the area to follow up on intelligence about the whereabouts of local criminal gangs, the Navy said in the statement.

The exchange was one of the most violent clashes between security forces and gangs since 17 suspected gangsters were killed in northwestern Mexico at the end of June.

Since 2007 when former President Felipe Calderon launched his assault on drug cartels, Mexico City has largely avoided the violence that has plagued much of the country and resulted in more than 100,000 deaths.

But violence has been rising in Mexico City, according to Interior Ministry data. In the first five months of 2017, there were 438 murders in the capital, up nearly 20 percent from the same period last year.
A gang shoots down a police helicopter near Apatzingán, Michoacán, killing four people. The police had been conducting an operation against criminal groups and drug cartels.