REYNOSA, Tamaulipas — Two gunmen from the Gulf Cartel died in this border city during a recent series of shootouts with Tamaulipas state police forces and the Mexican military.
The violence began in the Fuente Lomas neighborhood when state authorities responded to the area after receiving reports of gunmen roaming the streets. When law enforcement officials arrived, the cartel gunmen began firing while attempting to flee. The shootout soon turned into a series of rolling gun battles where vehicles full of cartel gunmen drove off in different directions in an effort to avoid capture.
Soon after the shootout began, other cartel gunmen began throwing road spikes along the main highways in the city in an effort to cause traffic jams as well as to disable responding military and law enforcement vehicles. The tactic proved successful when a military vehicle that was en route to provide backup was forced to stop after getting flat tires along the highway that connects Rio Bravo with Reynosa. The gunmen also carjacked busses and parked them along the streets in order to slow down traffic.
Amid the violence, a local transit bus was hit by stray gunfire, however, the passengers were not injured.
Two gunmen died as they clashed with military forces along one of the city’s main highways. A third gunman was able to escape by carjacking a truck from a passing motorist.
Prior to the shootouts, the city had seen a spike in carjacking activity. Local residents attribute the trend to cartel gunmen building up their numbers before restarting the ongoing territorial war that has been taking place within the Gulf Cartel for more than a year.
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 Tamaulipas.