Authorities in the western Mexican state of Colima said they killed three people Saturday suspected of being responsible for the shooting deaths of two family members of Mexico’s education secretary.
Colima, located on Mexico’s Pacific coast, is one of the most violent states in the country. It had Mexico’s highest homicide rate in 2023 and 2024, according to the U.S. State Department.
The local prosecutor’s office said officers killed three suspects in the 4:30 a.m. (10:30 GMT) shooting of two women, whom Mexico’s Public Education Secretary Mario Delgado later identified as his aunt and cousin.
They did not identify a motive for the shooting or say whether they were looking for other suspects.
“Deep shock, indignation and sadness at the events that occurred this morning in Colima, where my aunt Eugenia Delgado and my cousin Sheila were brutally murdered in their home,” Delgado wrote on SATURDAY.
“Throughout my childhood, my aunt Queña, as we affectionately called her, baked my birthday cake every year. That’s how she earned her living, working hard, selling delicious cakes and traditional Colima dishes prepared the way only she knew how. She is now with my grandparents and with my father, her beloved brother,” he wrote on X.
Authorities tracked the suspects’ vehicle to a Colima home Saturday afternoon and killed three people in a shootout, according to the prosecutor’s office.
Investigators found weapons and clothing at the suspects’ home linked to the double shooting.
Delgado was appointed Secretary of Education by President Claudia Sheinbaum in 2024 and his profile photo on shows them both together. He was previously national president of the ruling Morena party.
Gerardo Vieyra/NurPhoto via Getty Images 
Last month, Sheinbaum said efforts to crack down on Mexican cartels and slow northward migration were paying off. “convincing results” in an effort to prevent speeches of intervention by the Trump administration.
His comments come after President Trump last week threatened action against Mexican drug cartels by U.S. forces. Mr Trump told Fox News that the US had “eliminated 97% of the drugs coming in by sea” and that the US was “now going to start hitting land, as far as the cartels are concerned”.
