Heads of police officials discovered in Acapulco

updated 8:52 p.m. ET April 20, 2006

ACAPULCO, Mexico - The decapitated heads of two police officials were found early Thursday dumped in front of a government building in this Pacific coast resort, authorities said.

The heads of police commander Mario Nunez Magana and officer Jesus Alberto Ibarra were found at the same site where four drug traffickers died during a shootout with law enforcement. The heads of the two — who were involved in the Jan. 27 shootout — were accompanied by a sign that warned, “So that you learn to respect.”

They were discovered about 3 a.m. in front of the city’s Finance Department — just over a mile from the city’s main tourist zone — next to black plastic bags apparently used to carry them in, said local attorney general’s office official Rogelio Quevedo Mendoza.

The two bodies were later found in a different part of the city, one wrapped in a blue sheet and the other in a green rug, Quevedo said.

Colleagues said both had been kidnapped by armed men from their homes Wednesday as they were preparing to go to work. But police said they have no information on how or when the men disappeared.

The discovery came just hours after Zeferino Torreblanca, the governor of Guerrero state, where Acapulco is located, announced that he was investing $12 million to acquire heavy-duty weapons, new bulletproof vests, and modernized radios for the police force.

“The criminals should watch out because the good weapons are on their way,” he said Thursday.

Acapulco, 180 miles southwest of Mexico City, has been shaken this year by more than a dozen high-profile shooting deaths as well as several grenade attacks on police stations.

Federal investigators link the violence to a turf war between drug gangs in northern Mexico for lucrative smuggling routes into the United States.

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