- 24 - them with machetes, clubs and stones.” This confrontation lasted several minutes and, as a result, both police agents and civilians were injured, and three people were detained by the law enforcement agents.70 62. Some people withdrew and entered a private building located around 500 meters from the place where the conflict had started, but others continued throwing stones and rockets at the police and the personnel of the Trade Regulation Directorate.71 63. Following this confrontation, the state police, members of the Support and Reaction Forces, began to intervene. As this group of police agents advanced, the civilians who had remained on Manuel González Street also took refuge inside the private property. At approximately 7.50 a.m., members of the said police unit set up a security cordon around the building preventing other FPDT members from entering or leaving.72 About an hour and a half after the security cordon had been set up around the said private property, a group of about 200 people blocked both lanes of the Los Reyes-Lechería highway in front of the main entrance to the municipality of San Salvador Atenco to protest the events that had occurred in front of the Belisario Domínguez market. 73 64. The people who blocked the highway set fire to tires there; some of them carried machetes, they had Molotov cocktails, rockets, a large number of stones, clubs and a home-made canon, and they “placed a pipeline transporting ammonia” in front of their blockade. 74 In addition, during the blockade, FPDT members retained several police agents and took away their weapons, and detained an official van carrying a prisoner, and two police patrol cars. Consequently, the state Security Agency and the Federal Preventive Police coordinated the concentration of approximately 194 state police and 154 federal police on the premises of the Federal Preventive Police. At around 1.30 p.m., they advanced along the Texcoco-Lechería highway forming two compact units. As they advanced, an intense confrontation arose started by Molotov cocktails, stones and rockets launched at the police by the protestors. The two units of police agents began to break ranks and to separate because the Molotov cocktails set fire to the ground; then, they began to retreat in a disorderly manner owing to the intensity of the stones and rockets launched at them, as well as the projectiles fired from the home-made canon. Some of the police who lagged behind were surrounded and beaten. The confrontation lasted about 30 minutes, during which some police agents gathered together and advanced, and some of them tried to liberate their companions who were surrounded by the protestors, but they then backed off again. At about 2.45 p.m. the contingents from the state Security Agency and the Federal Preventive Police reassembled and once again advanced, but without forming compact units, and a second confrontation began. As they advanced in this second confrontation, they arrested some individuals who were on the highway. 75 65. Owing to these confrontations, the state Security Agency implemented a police operation involving between 320 and 420 state police agents to arrest the people who were inside the 70 Cf. SCJN judgment of February 12, 2009 (evidence file, folios 30692 and 30693). 71 Cf. SCJN judgment of February 12, 2009 (evidence file, folio 30694). 72 Cf. SCJN judgment of February 12, 2009 (evidence file, folios 30695 and 30696). 73 Cf. SCJN judgment of February 12, 2009 (evidence file, folio 30698). 74 SCJN judgment of February 12, 2009 (evidence file, folio 30699). Cf. SCJN judgment of February 12, 2009 (evidence file, folios 30699 to 30704). According to the state Security Agency, around 800 protestors and 345 police agents (from the state Security Agency and the Federal Preventive Police) took part in these confrontation. However, the SCJN indicated that “it is not certain how many police agents or how many civilians intervened in this event.” SCJN judgment of February 12, 2009 (evidence file, folio 30705). 75