Federal Preventative Police (PFP) Commissioner Adm. José Luis Figueroa told EL UNIVERSAL that the capital's deputy police chief had assured him that Mexico City officers were in a position to save the federal agents. Due to that information, federal agents who could have been dispatched were held back for an hour before being sent out, he said.

Figueroa said in a series of telephone conversations with Deputy Police Chief Gabriel Regino, he first had been assured that city police had the situation under control. But a half-an-hour after that assurance, Figueroa was told city police were having trouble getting to the agents. Federal reinforcements were sent in 30 minutes later at the same moment the police were being killed, nearly two hours after the first media reports.

Last week in the community of San Juan Ixtayopan, located in the southeastern Tláhuac precinct, a mob beat and then burned alive two federal agents whom residents apparently thought were kidnappers.

A third agent who was severely beaten and on the verge of also being set on fire by the crowd was saved by a group of Mexico City judicial police.

The gruesome incident was filmed by TV news crews who beat police reinforcements to the scene.

The federal agents were in the hands of the mob for nearly three hours before the two were killed and the failure of both capital and federal police forces to save the agents has led to mutual recriminations between the federal and Mexico City governments.

Federal prosecutors on Wednesday continued their probe into possible criminal negligence on the part of police in preventing the lynching of the agents.

Dozens of capital judicial police from the unit that rescued the surviving agent as well as local and federal police commanders are being questioned.

Lawmakers have demanded the resignation of both Mexico City Police Chief Marcelo Ebrard and Federal Police Chief Ramón Martín Huerta, as well as top PFP commanders.

Figueroa said the attacked agents were investigating drug dealers in the area that were allegedly receiving protection from capital beat cops and judicial detectives.

He dismissed speculation that federal agents attacked by a mob and burnt alive were investigating armed subversive groups operating in the capital, as some media have reported.

Meanwhile, in San Jaun Ixtayopan on Wednesday around 700 town residents and visitors filled the small church in the town's central plaza to hear a mass for the two murdered agents and their surviving colleague.

At the end of the mass, participants, many dressed in white, walked from the church carrying flowers and candles up the road to leave crosses at the site in front of a grade school where the two agents were set on fire.

The procession was accompanied by the ringing of the church bells the same bells that had been used to call residents to the central plaza the night of the lynching.

Residents in the town who spoke with a reporter earlier in the week said locals were still on edge from the incident and unwilling to admit they had joined the mob, which had swelled with onlookers into the thousands during the lynching.

Residents said there had been rumors of a child's body stripped of organs being discovered in the nearby Milpa Alta precinct. But no one said they had heard of any actual kidnapping in the community.

Other residents defiantly defended the actions of the mob and expressed disdain for the police.

"Listen, we are a small, old community and we maintain our customs," said a 26-year-old male native to the town who refused to give his name. "We look out for each other and protect our own. We can't trust the police to do it. As for these agents, half the time the criminals are ex-police."