ASCENCION, Mexico, Sept. 22 (UPI) -- While cohorts kept federal police at bay, vigilantes beat two suspected kidnappers to death in the Mexican town of Ascencion, local police said.
The mob justice was meted out Tuesday in the Chihuahua state town, The Christian Science Monitor reported.
The vigilante crowd numbering in the hundreds, and possibly the thousands, yelled and waved signs calling for an end to the kidnappings that have plagued the region, the online U.S. newspaper said.
The incident came the day after police in the state of Mexico saved an alleged house burglar apprehended and beaten by a crowd.
Javier Oliva, a security expert at Mexico's National Autonomous University, told the Monitor new anti-kidnapping legislation that could pass as early as this week would jack up prison sentences, wipe out the statute of limitations in abduction cases and punish those who help kidnappers.
Kidnappings are up 15 percent this year, officially, though some lawmakers say they have tripled in the past five years.
"The people have grown tired of all of this. Kidnappings have struck hard in this town," said Hector Romo, an Ascencion municipal police commander whose car was pelted with stones by the mob, forcing him back. "There was no way to control them. There were too many people."
