**Gunmen have shot dead the deputy police chief, Jose Manuel Revuelta, in the western Mexican state of Michoacan.**He was killed by heavily armed men in two cars who intercepted the vehicle he was driving. His two bodyguards and a bystander were also killed.
Mr Revuelta, 38, was killed blocks away from police headquarters in the state capital Morelia. He was appointed to the post just two weeks ago.
Michoacan is the base of Mexico’s feared La Familia drugs cartel.
The government has deployed some 5,000 troops and federal police there to quell a recent escalation in drugs-related violence.
The cartel has been blamed for a string of assassinations against federal police and soldiers in recent weeks in Michoacan - the home state of President Felipe Calderon.
It announced itself as a terrifying new force three years ago when its hitmen tossed the severed heads of five victims onto a dancefloor in a city nightclub.
In the worst attack, 12 federal agents were slain and their tortured bodies piled along a roadside as a warning for all to see.
Last month, 10 Mexican police officers were detained in connection with the killings.
Mexico’s raging drug war has claimed the lives of more than 13,000 people in three years.