GRAPHIC: Border City Gun Battles Kill 4, Injure 10

MIGUEL ALEMAN, Tamaulipas — Terror spread through this border region as cartel gunmen clashed with state police officers and Mexican soldiers in two separate gun battles that left four dead and 10 injured.

Initially, cartel gunmen had staged an impromptu meeting in the streets of Miguel Aleman where they met shortly before being alerted that a group of Tamaulipas police officers was patrolling a nearby area.

According to information released by the Tamaulipas government, the convoy of police officers was cut off by gunmen aboard a white SUV when the gunmen began to spray bullets and to throw road spikes. Being overwhelmed by the number of cartel shooters, the police officers called for backup.

The official version of events given by the government points to the gunmen striking the gas tanks of one of the SUVs, causing the vehicle to burst into flames. Law enforcement sources consulted by Breitbart Texas revealed that the gunmen had thrown grenades at the police vehicle.

Five police officers, including a woman who had been riding on the law enforcement vehicle all received severe burns from the fire. Two other police officers who had been riding in a separate vehicle were struck by gunfire.

Mexican soldiers and federal police officers rushed to fight off the cartel gunmen setting off a series of rolling gun battles throughout the city. The intensity of the fighting led Mayor Ramiro Cortez Barrera to get on social media and issue out an alert to residents.

“Sadly we are living through situations of risk in Miguel Aleman,” Cortez said in a social media post. “I ask you to be extremely careful and if possible to stay indoors until federal and state authorities tell us it is safe to do so.”

Various schools in the city went into lockdown while the gun battles raged outside. A local college student was struck by a stray bullet in his upper leg. According to local officials he is expected to recover. During the chaos, the gunmen managed to flee the city.

Military forces continued to looking for the gunmen that had ambushed the state police officers and caught up with them in the nearby Mexican city of Camargo, just south of Rio Grande City, Texas.  The gunmen had been fleeing on four SUVs when they came up to a toll both where military forces had stationed themselves. The gunmen began firing at the military–injuring two soldiers.

Mexican soldiers managed to kill four cartel men overall. During the fighting, two of the SUVs driven by the gunmen crashed into toll booths. The rest managed to flee the area. Inside the crashed vehicles, authorities found a .50 caliber rifle, several machine guns and other weapons.

Editor’s Note: Breitbart Texas traveled to the Mexican States of Tamaulipas, Coahuila and Nuevo León 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 “A.C. Del Angel” from Reynosa and Ildefonso Ortiz from Breitbart Texas.