Gunmen who holed up in a bank after a foiled robbery in which five people died let their 42 captives go Thursday and were allowed to flee with three Red Cross workers as hostages. Police said the gunmen released the hostages 15 minutes later, when they abandoned an armored car in which they left the bank for a stolen pickup truck and station wagon. Hostage Rosario Angulo, who drove the armored car, said only five gunmen fled, one of whom had an arm wound. ``I think the other two mixed in among the crowd at the moment of leaving the bank,'' said Rosario, 20. Most police officers had withdrawn from around the bank just before the seven men left, apparently as part of an agreement ending the 24-hour standoff. Angulo said the robbers had ``goats horns (sawed-off machine guns), ammunition and dynamite sticks.'' When the armored car had roared away, a policemen shouted to hundreds of people outside the branch of the National Bank of Mexico: ``Thanks to you, the hostages are safe!'' Spectators had urged officials to end the crisis peacefully and some had shouted ``Freedom, freedom!'' in support of the gunmen. Gov. Francisco Labastida Ochoa told the Televisa network's afternoon news program the agreement allowed police to pursue the gunmen. ``We're not deceiving anyone,'' the governor said. ``We simply reached an agreement in which we could safeguard lives.'' The 42 hostages were taken to a hospital in Red Cross ambulances. Soldiers were seen checking vehicles on highways leading from the city. Ignacio Lara, a spokesman for the governor, said the gunmen demanded earlier that they be allowed to leave by air. Police said the robbers were in their late teens or early 20s and had no political motives. Labastida Ochoa said there were no injuries in a shooting incident Thursday morning when the gunmen grabbed weapons from a pickup truck outside the bank. News reports had said one gunman was wounded by police gunfire. The standoff in Los Mochis, a city of 120,000 on the Gulf of California, began at 12:45 p.m. Wednesday when the gunmen took hostages after an alarm alerted police to the attempted robbery. Bank robberies and other crime has increased in Mexico since 1982, when an economic crisis caused by plummeting oil prices began to erode purchasing power and drive up unemployment. Sinaloa is known as a crime center, particularly involving the illegal drug trade. Red Cross spokesmen said five people were killed and at least 15 wounded during the attempted robbery and ensuing standoff. They said the gunmen freed two men and two women Thursday morning. Hundreds of police had surrounded the bank. ``We are all going to die,'' one gunmen said by telephone to a radio station in Culiacan, capital of Sinaloa state. ``Let them give us the helicopter ... or we are going to blow up all of this. ... We don't want innocent people to die, but if we are going to die innocent people are going to as well,'' said the man, who identified himself only as Alfredo. Gov. Labastida Ochoa had offered in an interview with Televisa to let the gunmen meet with a committee of Red Cross officials, journalists, a Roman Catholic priest and state police to guarantee safety and due process of law. Another gunman, in an interview Televisa broadcast Thursday morning, said all the hostages were being treated well. Asked where they could go if given safe passage, he replied: ``I wouldn't be able to tell you where we could go. We can't turn ourselves in. They want to kill us.'' Hostages told the media by telephone during the siege the gunmen were getting them food and beverages. Jesus Acosta, a spokesman for the local Red Cross, said one of its rescue workers was among those killed in a gunfight Wednesday between police and the gunmen. He said the others slain were a customer, bank official and teller, and a policeman who was in the bank on business at the time of the robbery and tried to prevent it.
