Once again the Mexican border city of Reynosa was the stage of violent firefights. Gulf Cartel gunmen exchanged gunfire barrages with Mexican police and military forces. However, the Tamaulipas government remains quiet about the casualties.
The shoot-outs were reported by citizen journalists earlier this week in various areas of the city. The reports pointed to various trucks filled with gunmen exchanging gunshots with police and military. Additional gunmen responding to the scenes of the shoot-outs.
The City of Reynosa even sent out an alert on social media warning the public about a “situation of risk” along Boulevard Hidalgo. This is one of the main roads that crosses the city. The message warned citizens to avoid the areas near Narciso Mendoza and Caracoles neighborhoods.
Citizen journalist reported two state police officers sustained minor injuries while others reported seeing various gunmen dead. However, days after the shoot-out, the Tamaulipas government had not provided any information nor sent any news releases about it.
The Tamaulipas government sent out seven news releases the day after the shootings. The releases were about medical tourism, the birth rate in the state, new sporting areas and a high profile arrest in Ciudad Victoria. The shooting incidents were ignored by the state’s government.
Two days after the shoot-out, the Tamaulipas government sent out a news release about the arrest of 13 cartel members. Two of the men were illegal aliens from Guatemala. They were riding in three vehicles. Six weapons were seized. A small amount of drugs and some road spikes were also confiscated.
The news release never made any mention of the shoot-outs nor the chaos that the citizens of Reynosa went through in recent days.
As Breitbart Texas previously reported, the Tamaulipas government has worked to minimize the out of control violence in that border state by ignoring some shoot-outs and under-representing the severity of the regularly occurring gun battles.
The cities along the border in Tamaulipas are seeing a sharp increase in violence since February. At that time, two rival factions of the Gulf Cartel went to war, setting off large scale gun battles and regular gruesome executions, Breitbart Texas previously reported.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award winning journalist with Breitbart Texas you can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.