MEXICO CITY  Gunmen stormed into the home of a policeman in the southeastern Gulf Coast state of Tabasco and opened fire, killing 12 people, including 6 children, the authorities said Sunday.

The policeman, Carlos Reyes López, who died in the attack, was a member of an elite state squad formed last year in Tabasco to address growing violence, much of which is believed to be related to drug-trafficking cartels, according to local news media. Among the dead were the officer’s wife, his mother and several of her grandchildren, according to a statement from Rafael Miguel González Lastra, the Tabasco state attorney general. The youngest was a 2-year-old boy.

A frozen-strawberry vendor, who had driven up to the modest family compound in the hamlet of Monte Largo, was also killed in the attack.

Another salesman, who survived the shooting, told the local newspaper Tabasco Hoy that he heard the gunmen move through three small houses where the extended Reyes family lived, shooting high-caliber weapons.