Mexican government officials tried to downplay a large-scale cartel shootout in the border city of Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, that went on for hours. The shootout triggered a security warning from the U.S. consulate in that city.
The shootouts occurred on Saturday night and continued into Sunday morning throughout Nuevo Laredo. The shootouts started on the western side of the city when a convoy of Mexican army soldiers was carrying out a series of security patrols and encountered a group of gunmen from the Cartel Del Noreste faction of Los Zetas.
The soldiers tried to intercept the gunmen, who began shooting as additional gunmen began to mobilize throughout the city, setting up roadblocks and providing extra support. At the same time, the military forces fought back and called for backup.
The fighting soon spread throughout the city, prompting the U.S. Consulate General in Nuevo Laredo to send a security warning and ask all its employees to shelter in place. The shelter-in-place order lasted for approximately 8 hours as gunmen and soldiers chased each other throughout the city.
In the aftermath of the shootout, Jorge Cuellar, the security spokesman for the Tamaulipas government, claimed that only three individuals had been injured in the “isolated event” and that no fatalities had resulted. The claims by the bureaucrat are false as internal communications within Tamaulipas law enforcement, as well as within Mexico’s military, point to at least three dead gunmen and several arrests.
As Breitbart Texas has reported, Cuellar has a history of suppressing information about the violence in Tamaulipas and going as far as lying to claim that the state is safe. He is the same public official who claimed that the U.S. Consulate in Matamoros was wrong for issuing a travel alert over kidnappings in passenger buses near the border city of Reynosa.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com.
Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.