SAN JUAN IXTAYOPAN, Mexico – One day after a mob burned two federal police officers alive and beat a third, believing they were kidnappers, the residents of this town were still angry. And unapologetic.

“We’ll keep taking justice in our hands if in 20 days police don’t end kidnappings, robberies and police corruption,” said one indignant housewife, who like nearly everyone here asked not to be identified.

The beatings and burnings of the Federal Preventive Police agents were the latest cases of vigilante action in a country fed up with crime.

Scores of police lined the streets. But the show of force came too late to save the officers, whose beatings and burnings unfolded in front of television cameras on Tuesday. That footage dominated broadcasts Wednesday.

The news shots included video of one of the officers pleading with his superiors for help moments before his two partners were doused with gasoline and set aflame.

The mob included many women and children.

Conflicting reports surrounded the brutal events. Witnesses said federal police reinforcements took more than two hours to arrive and that local officers watched the lynching and did nothing to prevent it. The town has an 11-member police force.

The three agents, dressed in civilian clothes and driving an unmarked car, reportedly were staking out suspected drug traffickers outside an elementary school in this town southeast of Mexico City when the attack occurred.

Several parents and children thought they saw a woman speed away in a taxi with two children leaving the Popol Vuh elementary school at 6:20 p.m. and started calling for help, police and witnesses said.

“When the kids got out of school, my son started running and asking for help. He was scared and crying,” said Martha Patricia Lopez.

She and others said they thought the agents were accomplices in the alleged kidnapping.

The agents were dragged from their car when people reported seeing them with photographs of children and other people.

For two hours, furious residents, some of them drunk and laughing, beat the officers with sticks and kicked them.

It’s unclear why police reinforcements didn’t arrive in time to save the officers. Helicopters dispatched by television and stations in Mexico City hovered above the scene for hours, but the officers dispatched to help the agents apparently came by the winding highway that links the town to the capital.

At one point, television cameras recorded one of the officers, Edgar Moreno, 26, his face bloody, telephoning his superiors. “We need help. People here are attacking us! Please, bring help fast,” he said.

Afterward, he spoke into the cameras, saying they were federal anti-terrorism agents sent to the area on official business.

Shortly after that, the video shows his two partners, Victor Mireles Barrerra, 29, and Cristobal Bonilla Colin, 25, being doused with gasoline and set on fire. The video shows their bodies smoldering in the middle of the street, with their overturned car destroyed in the background.

Federal Police Commissioner Jose Luis Figueroa said the reinforcements had difficulty arriving because of rough terrain, but he didn’t say why helicopters weren’t sent.

Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said the police were delayed because of traffic in the rugged two-hour drive.

This poor, colonial settlement of 35,000 is about 40 miles southeast of central Mexico City in the municipality of Tlahuac, but still within Mexico’s Federal District, the administrative area for the greater Mexico City area.

It’s been beset by an increase in drug trafficking and has a reputation for being among the Federal District’s most violent areas. Two children disappeared from the school recently, and residents said they think they were kidnapped by child trafficking rings.

Attorney General Rafael Macedo la Concha launched an official investigation. He said the probe would explore the possibility that the three police agents were involved in drug trafficking, but he added that the lynching couldn’t be excused.

Mexico has several police forces that, much as in the United States, have different jurisdictions and responsibilities. The Federal Preventive Police are charged with investigating federal crimes, and the unit was created five years ago in response to allegations that its predecessor police force was corrupt.

According to police recordings released Wednesday, the first call for help came at 6:10 p.m. from citizens to the Federal Preventive Police, saying a crowd was attacking officers. At 7:15 the Mexico City Judicial Police, which has responsibility for policing the Federal District, received a call that two people had attempted to kidnap two children. Officers were dispatched then, though it’s unclear how many.

At 7:30, the Preventive Police and Judicial Police received calls that 300 people were holding the three officers. Fifteen minutes later, the police forces asked other towns in the area to send reinforcements.

In the meantime, a beaten Moreno was shoved in front of television cameras, where he pleaded for help. At 8:30 p.m., his two partners were set on fire.

The crowd then dragged Moreno to a street kiosk, where he was tied up, witnesses said, with the intention of setting him on fire as well.

Moreno, however, was rescued at about 9:45 p.m. after the first police reinforcements arrived and dispersed the crowd with tear gas. More police arrived at about 11 p.m., including 68 members of the Preventive Police. Another detachment arrived at about 1 a.m.

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On Wednesday morning, scores of uniformed officers stood guard near the school and dozens of others patrolled the streets. The officers’ bodies and car were gone, but ashes and blood could be seen on the street not far from the town’s main square.

Moreno was in Xoco Hospital south of Mexico City in intensive care.

“He’s between life and death,” nephew Victor Manuel Monroy said, speaking at the capital’s Galloso funeral home, where hundreds of relatives, police and military officers, many crying and embracing the flower-strewn caskets, attended a memorial for officer Mireles.

“We want justice, to know what happened,” added Monroy.

In San Juan Ixtayopan, however, many seemed to feel justice had been served.

“We support the killings,” said one man, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Police here are all corrupt.”