Mexican authorities have confirmed a weekend shootout just south of the Texas border involving a convoy of gunmen and Tamaulipas police officers.
The shootout took place Sunday evening near the Rio Bravo neighborhood in the border city of Miguel Aleman, information provided to Breitbart Texas by the Tamaulipas government revealed. Miguel Aleman is just south of the Rio Grande from Roma Texas.
Members of the Fuerza Tamaulipas police force had been patrolling the city when gunmen carrying high powered rifles and riding in three SUV’s began firing at them and then fled the area. Authorities went after the gunmen and caught up with the vehicles shortly after but the gunmen had managed to flee. Authorities did not provide information as to the weapons used by the gunmen. It remains unclear if authorities recovered the weapons or the gunmen took them with them while fleeing on foot.
The rural border area near Miguel Aleman and the neighboring city of Camargo has been used by the Gulf Cartel to move drug loads and to cross illegal aliens since the area has minimal physical barriers and no border fence. As previously reported by Breitbart Texas, there have been various cases where cartel gunmen have fired at U.S. Border Patrol agents who are trying to stop the smuggling activity. One of those cases took place on February 26, when cartel smugglers on the Mexican side fired at agents on the American side.
Another case took place in early January when as reported by Breitbart Texas, agents spotted men in camouflage clothing on board a raft. For unknown reason, the men began to fire at the agent who was forced to pull out his service handgun and fire back. No injuries were reported in that case.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award winning journalist with Breitbart Texas you can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.