Four men died Wednesday in a shootout in Guatemala City’s largest market.Two bystanders — a 13-year-old boy and a 21-year-old man — were wounded by gunshots to the leg.The incident took place at 11:15 a.m. in the seafood area of The Terminal Market in south-central Guatemala City.

“It’s an area pretty full of people,”.Police were investigating a report that one of the men had stolen a pair of pants and that vigilantes in the market killed all four.Guatemala has just 19,000 members of its national police force, and it needs 45,000 of them.Still he did not condone vigilante violence. “Any person who breaks the law is investigated,”.

In the three months since the appointment of a new director general of the police, progress has been made, he said, citing the liberation of 27 kidnap victims and the reduction in killings from an average of 17 per day to 12.