Breitbart Texas traveled to the Mexican States of Tamaulipas and Coahuila to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities. The writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that operate in those areas including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and in their original Spanish. This article was written by Matamoros’ “J.A. Espinoza.”
MATAMOROS, Tamaulipas — A team of gunmen crashed a party setting off a shootout that killed one man and injured another in an upper class neighborhood in this border city.
The attack took place earlier this week at a house on Leon Street #18 in the Fiesta subdivision of the Victoria neighborhood where several men gathered for a party. The gunmen arrived and began to shoot at the victims.
According to the official information released by the Tamaulipas government, the gunmen arrived at the house and during the attack killed one man and injured a second one. However unofficial accounts from witnesses and neighbors which have been leaked to social media point to as many as 10 victims having been shot during the attack. That information has not been confirmed.
According to the official information form authorities, the gunmen left behind a vehicle just a block away and are believed to have fled on foot or may have switched vehicles. Authorities found a small amount of drugs but no weapons in the vehicle that was left behind.
State and federal authorities set up a perimeter and began a manhunt for the gunmen. Authorities caught one man who is believed to have taken part in the attack. Since the investigation remains ongoing, it is unclear if the man has been charged or not.
SOCIAL MEDIA SILENCE
In recent years, border news outlets have been silenced by drug cartels and corrupt politicians leaving behind an information void. Average citizens began to fill that void by using social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook in order to provide first hand accounts of the violence that continues to run wild in their city.
However, in recent weeks an apparent lack of interest seems to have taken over this border city. Citizens have become more and more reluctant to take part in social media reporting. Some users have begun to express their concern at the virtual silence that has taken hold of the city.
“No one is posting anything about what is happening in Matamoros, so sad,” one social media user posted Tweeted earlier this week as questions about the shootout in the Victoria neighborhood began to take hold of the city.
Some one else asked “Is there a shootout by the little lake on 3rd?” No one responded to the message. Various citizens have expressed their concern at the silence as well as the distrust of authorities and other social media users has begun to spread.