MEXICO CITY (AP) - Authorities were searching Monday for 57 students reported missing after weekend violence left at least six people dead and 25 wounded in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero.
Twenty-two police officers from the city of Iguala were detained in connection with the incidents, Guerrero state prosecutor Inaky Blanco said. He said they denied responsibility but several had been identified by students.
Blanco said military and state authorities were participating in the search for the students from the Ayotzinapa Superior normal school, known in Mexico for their activism and for organizing protests.
Masked protesters marched through the state capital, Chilpancingo, on Monday, pelting the glass-window entrance to the state congress building with rocks.
The violence Friday night and Saturday in Iguala began when police clashed with students who had seized three buses in a protest. Gunmen later opened fire on at least two taxis on a highway, as well as a bus carrying a local soccer team.
Three of the dead were identified as students. The others were passengers on the bus, including a young soccer player.
The governmental National Human Rights Commission has said it is investigating.
Guerrero, a state with high poverty rates, is also the home of territory hotly contested by drug gangs.
Also Monday, authorities were investigating the killing of a regional political leader at a historic hotel in the Pacific resort city of Acapulco.