Crime Update: Rare Mexico City Attack - Five Shot Dead

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The local security secretariat said Saturday that five people were shot dead in central Mexico City, a rare attack in the capital and reportedly related to organized crime, according to local reports. 


The attack occurred at the town hall in Miguel Hidalgo, one of Mexico City's most affluent neighborhoods, late Friday. 


According to a source, police responding to an alert found "five people on the ground with gunshot wounds." 


Three men were certified dead at the scene by emergency personnel, while the other two were transported to a local hospital where they later died because of the severity of their injuries, the security secretariat said.


Local media reports said one of the victims was a member of the local Union Tepito cartel but city authorities have not confirmed this.


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Despite growing drug cartel violence in Mexico over the last decade, shootings and multiple killings are rare in the capital compared to other areas of the country.


The city was stunned, however, by an attack on its security chief, Omar Garcia Harfuch, in June last year by heavily armed gunmen who killed two of his bodyguards and a passerby. Garcia Harfuch, who was hospitalized, blamed the powerful Jalisco New Generation drug cartel for the attack. 


Since Mexico mobilized the military to combat the drug cartels in 2006, more than 300,000 people have been killed, with much of the killings being blamed on organized crime.