Shootout at Tijuana Prison

A spectacular shootout between inmates inside the violence-plagued Tijuana state prison Wednesday left four inmates believed dead and one guard wounded, according to Mexican authorities.

After the noontime incident, two pistol-toting inmates involved in the shooting barricaded themselves in a building inside the sprawling 2,000-inmate prison in the La Mesa neighborhood and held police and guards at bay, officials said. It was not clear late Wednesday whether the two men had been captured.

Heavily armed riot squads from the Baja California state police and Tijuana municipal police arrived to help guards quell the disturbance at an institution that has been wracked with violence, corruption and crowding for years.

Prison director Gerardo Gonzalez Aragon, the third director appointed as part of a reform campaign initiated by Gov. Ernesto Ruffo Appel after his election in 1989, told reporters Wednesday that the presence of guns in the prison has been a grave problem.

The guns used in Wednesday’s incident may have been allowed to enter by corrupt guards, Gonzalez said.

Among the inmates confirmed dead were two brothers awaiting trial for the murder of a federal police officer in Playas de Tijuana last year, officials said. They were identified as Hermenegildo Coronel Ayala, 36, and Francisco Coronel Ayala, 45. Their cousin, 23-year-old Martin Coronel, was gravely wounded and may also be dead, officials said, but his death had not been confirmed.

The three inmates engaged in a point-blank shootout with 9 millimeter pistols with three other inmates who stormed into their cellblock and opened fire, officials said. One of the attackers, 25-year-old murder suspect Jesus Pazo Sanchez, was also killed.

One guard was hit during the shootout and was reportedly in serious condition, officials said. He was identified as Jesus Gutierrez Moran, age unknown.

The reason for the attack was unclear, but it may have been related to a search for guns conducted by guards the previous night, officials said.

La Mesa holds a mixture of federal and state inmates, some convicted and others awaiting trial. There have been two shootouts this year and numerous incidents in the past. In the worst violence, the prison director, assistant director and five other people were killed in 1978.

Miguel Cervantes Sahagun contributed to this story.