ASCENSION, Mexico — In a small rural town in the state of Chihuahua, where the rule of law is more concept than reality, angry residents felt justified in killing two presumed kidnappers Tuesday.

The two 17-year-olds, Raymundo Rascon Ortega and Andres Ramirez Gonzalez, were part of a group of eight who had abducted 16-year-old Thelma Diaz Salazar from a seafood restaurant, state police said.

Ascension is a farming town 120 miles southwest of Ciudad Juarez and close to the U.S. border of New Mexico.

The town had been the scene of a rash of kidnappings in the past few months. In the past, Ascension residents had banded together to raise ransom money. On Tuesday, they banded together to get revenge.

The kidnapped girl’s aunt, Maricruz Salazar, said the group had been carrying out at least three kidnappings a week for months. People of Ascension knew the kidnappers because they were members of the small community.

“We are a town in so much distress,” Salazar said. “We are sick of the kidnappings.”

What occurred Tuesday was bound to happen, many residents said.

State police said eight gunmen arrived about 8 a.m. at Mariscos Lolo, a restaurant owned by Noel Dolores Loya. He is a town alderman and the uncle of the kidnapped girl.

The eight kidnappers appeared to have confused the girl with Dolores’ wife. They grabbed the girl and escaped in three vehicles northbound toward Buena Vista, a ranch of Mennonites, officials said.

Meanwhile, the father of the girl and the owner of the restaurant called the Mexican army and federal police.

They also called friends and relatives in town to organize a mob.

“I don’t understand how they could gather everyone so quickly,” Salazar said.

On their way to Buena Vista, the kidnappers already were being followed by at least 20 people on horseback and in vehicles.

One of the kidnappers’ vehicles, a Ford Explorer, rolled over on the highway. The second vehicle, a truck, turned over and fell into an irrigation channel to avoid crashing with the Explorer.

A gunfight then erupted between the Mexican army and the kidnappers. The army captured the three men in the first car.

The passengers of the second vehicle tried to flee by hiding in the cotton fields. Those in the third vehicle escaped.

Dozens of residents had joined the search for the kidnappers, forming a group of about 200 people.

Thirty minutes after the crash, about 9:30 a.m., the group found two of the alleged kidnappers a mile from the crash scene and attacked them.

Ignacio Ramirez said he paused to observe what was going on.

“Everywhere I looked, I saw people whose family members had been kidnapped in the past,” he said. “The hate had been accumulating from months before.”

Finally, he said, the military and the federal police separated the alleged kidnappers from the mob.

But the crowd would not drop the matter so easily.

The crowd forced the authorities to take the alleged kidnappers in a civilian truck supervised by residents, while many more people followed the truck to the military barracks.

At the barracks, one of the 17-year-olds told the mob, “See you here in 15 days,” witnesses said.

The crowd, now grown to nearly 2,000 people, exploded again. Crowd members broke into the barracks with trucks, took the two boys outside and beat them, witnesses said.

Federal police got the boys away from the crowd and put them inside a police vehicle, where they stayed for several hours with the windows closed.

The crowd kept police from helping the two boys inside the vehicle and also blocked the area where a federal police helicopter was trying to land.

About 3 p.m., a man informed the crowd that the boys were dead.

It is not known whether the boys died from the beatings or were asphyxiated. The Chihuahua state attorney general’s office had not determined the cause of death.

The alleged kidnappers the Mexican army detained were taken to Juarez and are being held on suspicion of kidnapping.

Jorge Leyva of the Chihuahua state attorney general’s office in Ascension said the kidnappings and killings were under investigation.

On Wednesday, the mayor of Ascension, Rafael Camarillo, said it was clear the power of the residents on Tuesday was greater than that of the authorities.

Although he opposes the residents’ actions, Camarillo said, he does not want the people of Ascension to face homicide charges.

“It would make them even angrier,” he said.

Camarillo on Wednesday fired his 14 municipal police officers. He said people had demanded the firings, and he did not want any more conflicts.

Camarillo said crime is worse in his town than in Juarez, a city known worldwide because of its drug-cartel violence.

More than drug trafficking, Camarillo said, the economic crisis has caused gang crime in the rustic town.

“This has never happened before in the history of the state of Chihuahua or Mexico,” he said.

Ascension was a safe town, people said, until recently, when the multiple kidnappings began. Residents have organized to donate money for ransoms of up to tens of thousands of dollars.

Ignacio Ramirez said Tuesday’s events prompted residents to form a civil police, or vigilante group, that will respond to future kidnappings. He said he did not know whether the residents would be armed.

He has contacted the nearby town of LeBaron, which is also under siege because of kidnappings.

“We can’t go on living a life that is like hell,” Ramirez said.