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Grenade-toting gunman killed in Acapulco
Jun. 16, 2006. 05:52 AM

ACAPULCO, Mexico (AP) — A state policeman fought off four assailants who attacked him with assault rifles in the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco. One of the gunmen in the attack died with a grenade in his hand and four more among his possessions.

The attack on Thursday occurred far from the city's famed hotel zone, but close to the scene where suspected drug traffickers fought a pitched gun battle with police that killed four people in January.

The policeman returned fire when attacked, killing one gunman and forcing the other three assailants to flee, the city's police department said in a report.

But as if to illustrate the growing problem of crime in this once-glittering resort, the officer was driving a stolen luxury car which police had seized, but then apparently reserved for their own use, prosecutors said.

Acapulco has been plagued by a number of violent incidents in recent months.

Last week, a severed human head washed up on the beach in the heart of Acapulco's tourist zone; the man's identity and how he was killed have not yet been determined.

In April, suspected drug hit men decapitated two police officers who had participated in the January shootout, and left the officers' severed heads at the scene of the gunbattle with a note saying: "So that you learn some respect."

As if to further underscore the city's crime problem, federal agents arrested the head guard at Acapulco's main penitentiary on Thursday on charges of selling drugs inside the prison, the government news agency Notimex reported.