On Sunday night the Mexican State of Tamaulipas announced the murder of two off-duty state police officers. The two men were killed and another was injured while headed to the U.S. border city of Laredo with a large amount of cash.
The police officers worked for the Fuerza Tamaulipas, a state police unit that runs heavily armed patrols in the city of Nuevo Laredo, just across the river from Laredo, Texas, according to a report from KGNS TV in Laredo.
The three men were headed towards Laredo, Texas, on Sunday night. The shooting happened very close to Laredo, along Colosio Boulevard that runs along the southern bank of the Rio Grande River.
The Mexican newspaper of El Quiosco reported the men carryied approximately $6,000 in U.S. currency and allegedly headed to Laredo for a “shopping trip.” Police in Mexico also recovered several cell phones.
A large sum of cash and three cell phones recoverd on the body of one off-duty police officer in Nuevo Laredo. (Photo : Martin Rivera/Information Leader)
The authorities identified the dead police officers as Mao Francisco Briseño Quintanilla, 33, a native of Matamoros, and Jorge Ivan Castillo Gomez, 29, a native of Reynosa, according to El Quiosco.
The survivor, Omar Hernandez Abdiel Carcano, offered no explanation for the large sum of cash other than a shopping trip in Laredo on their day off.
The men drove a Ford Expedition that bore Tamaulipas state license plates. An unknown number of assailants who were traveling in two vehicles attacked them.
“I heard the shots and I could see the bullets gave to my partner who was driving, which lost control, crashing into the mesh of some land next to Colosio,” Hernandez Carcano said, after surviving the attack. He managed to escape the attack by running down a ravine where he fell and injured his leg. The assailants did not shoot him.
The people of Nuevo Laredo have denounced what they call atrocities committed by the state’s police force.
The incident is being investigated to determine who attacked the police officers and where they got the large sum of cash.
The two men killed had previously served as body guards for the late General Cesar Niño Ricardo Villarreal. The General had been assigned to the region to bring security to the area. He and his wife were killed in November, 2014, when they were ambushed in Vallecillo, Nuevo Leon. Their vehicle was struck by more than 100 rounds of heavy-caliber ammunition, according to DW.com.
Bob Price is a senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas and a member of the original Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and on Facebook.
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