CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico – A Mexican police official says gunmen have killed a state prison director in the border city of Ciudad Juarez.

City police spokesman Jaime Torres says prison chief Salvador Barreno was shot Thursday as he drove in Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas. His bodyguard was also killed.

Witnesses told investigators the assailants opened fired on Barreno's car from a pickup truck near a busy intersection on Thursday afternoon.

Torres says three other men died in a separate shooting minutes later.

More than 500 people have been murdered in Ciudad Juarez this year in a wave of violence blamed on drug gangs.