CULIACAN, MEXICO — It was a street party at a popular gathering place, typical of Saturday nights in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. Drinks, a musical band, a joining together of the mostly young.
Then, shortly before midnight, a white double-cabin pickup screeched to a stop on Palm Tree Street in the town of Navolato. At least four gunmen burst from the vehicle and sprayed the party with semiautomatic gunfire.
Eight people were killed, among them women and teenagers. Several more were seriously wounded and remained hospitalized Sunday, said Jose Luis Leyva of the state prosecutor's office in Culiacan, the state capital about 20 miles to the east.
The shooting may have been part of a string of apparent vigilante attacks in which low-level criminals have been killed by armed squads thought to be working with drug traffickers, police -- or both. More than 30 carjackers and robbers have been killed in similar circumstances in Sinaloa in the last few months, according to a count kept here by journalists.
