A confusing situation continues to unfold in Cabo San Lucas after the Plaza Sendero retail mall in this resort city was the scene of a confrontation between gunmen and authorities during the afternoon hours of Saturday.
This Saturday evening the Milenio news agency reported that 12 gunmen armed with assault weapons had barricaded themselves in the Soriana big box store located in the mall.
The gunmen were being pursued by municipal police at the time and had entered the mall to avoid capture.
According to Milenio there were approximately 600 shoppers inside the store at the time and that up to 200 remained hostage after 6 of the gunmen had been captured.
In a later report Sedena, Mexico's Defense Ministry, denied that any hostages were being held and that no injuries or deaths had occurred at the Plaza Sendero.
Sedena reported that at 3:00pm a detachment of troops had surrounded the mall and that a search was underway for the gunmen, with an undetermined number found and arrested.
The State Attorney General's office reported no hostages taken and 3 gunmen arrested.
The incident at Plaza Sendero in this usually quiet tourist resort city followed a gunbattle in the colonia Brisas del Pacifico that stretched from 11:00pm Friday to early Saturday morning.
Automatic gunfire and grenade blasts shook the city when state police and the military raided a home in the search for the killers of police commander Martín Márquez Ruíz, who was murdered earlier in the week.
One Marine and a gunman were killed, 3 state ministerial police were wounded and 2 gunmen were captured during the raid in Brisas del Pacifico.
It was not known if the clashes in Brisas del Pacifico and the Plaza Sendero mall were related.
Sources:
http://www.milenio.com/cdb/doc/noticias2011/d66c3c523c60b03240b8c4d4c4615c8f
http://www.milenio.com/cdb/doc/noticias2011/d66c3c523c60b03240b8c4d4c46c9b33
http://colectivopericu.wordpress.com/2011/10/29/%c2%a1no-hubo-toma-de-rehenes/#more-22774
http://colectivopericu.wordpress.com/2011/10/29/%c2%a1boletin-de-prensa-de-ultima-hora/#more-22769
Going there on vacation this tues.
ReplyDeleteCabo has been very quiet...this is not a good sign for Baja Sur.....
ReplyDeleteThat's where the tourist market is big, this will only get worse, selling drugs and lifting gringos, a real vacation highlight.
ReplyDelete@9:58pm
ReplyDeleteHope you have great life insurance :) Safe travels!
Wen of forum posted this story and I checked with people on the ground. This is so blown out of proportion. This was a case of the military doing their job and chased sicarios. 1 or 2 taking cover in soriana, 4 dead and one dead commandante.
ReplyDeleteThis is nothing folks, a job well done.
as for your trip on Tuesday, Cabo remains one of the safest places in the Americas with a very low homicide rate.
cabo has one road in/out so in effect is a lousy drug route unless by sea.
who controls baja sur?. i heard CDS controls baja
ReplyDeleteGood luck on ur vacation. It took a while for Cabo to get hit. A beautiful place, what a shame
ReplyDeleteShame baja sur was one of the last true safe places in mexico.
ReplyDeleteAbuela, Four dead plus one police commander in one day and they are blowing this out of proportion?????????
ReplyDeleteThis is nothing??????????
You toking on the wacky weed again compliments of Los Chapos or what?
Do not underestimate the long reach of these bastards!
@Buela - who's paying you?? Tourism board??
ReplyDeleteBet chapo has a strike team already on the way..
ReplyDeleteBuela..... no pasa nada.
ReplyDeletewe are all sad at the way this is being blown out of proportion and of course it will our tourism becaus there are too many who want to believe the bad news aspect without knowing what's really going on. this was the police doing there job. sure there was a crime at the beginning of it all, but in the end they neeted some bad guys and there were no injuries. this area is not located in the touist area. unless people have their noses in their blackberries it went unnoticed. i hope they get the rest of them.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the fishing will get better without all the touristas taking all the marlin. It would be better is the airport wasn't an hour drive through the slums. But it still is an amazing airport to see the Gulfstreams lined up like it's a mall. Great place, but it was getting worse a few years back when you were horded by the locals trying to sell drugs to all the touristas. Cabo. Had some wild romps with this firecracker from Arkansas the last time I was there. Good times...good times.
ReplyDeleteMost illegal activities in Cabo San Lucas are runned by the Beltran Leyva Cartel,and their rivals CDS want control over it.
ReplyDeleteI live here and there's a whole lot more that they are not reporting. Lots more shootings and some very important people dead all within the last week. It's all about the zeta's and the sinaloa cartel wanting this terrritory now. Government wants to keep it hushed so as not to ruin tourism or the cruise ships from coming in.
ReplyDelete3:08 pm. Got more info. Thanks
ReplyDelete@October 30, 2011 3:08 PM.Brother who runs it right now,or is one being pushed out?Who do you think is winning,CDS,ZETAS/BLO?
ReplyDeleteThanks, you just outed me! I only took the money from the Cabo travel board to supplement my social security! jajaja
ReplyDeleteseriously, I have some Qs for the person that lives in Cabo.
1. Zetas? tell me more, that is so not what I have known to. Do you have any info you can share with me? I have always read it is a sicario war a nice write up in Zeta about 3 mos ago.
2. Another conspiracy theory? well may I ask this, if the gov was so capable of these conspiracis and hushing even social networks (yea right) why did they allow Mty to get so fucked up? I mean Mty is a gazillion times more valuable than Cabo yet they allowed business, mfg, and people to escape in droves not to mention the tourism to dissolve.
3. Q how many civilians were killed, kidnapped or injured during this capture?
Here are the facts:
The military were doing their job. Going after the bad guys, the suspects in the murder of the commandante. The 200 “hostages” were people trapped inadvertantly from the chase. This was not a big planned mass kidnapping.
This type of thing can and does happen everywhere. Cabo is still a safe place. Yes it is a (sinaloa) narco port trampoline, yes they have sicarios struggling for the territory, yes travelers must be vigilant, just as in any tourist city In the world. But it remains safe. But don’t take my word...
BTW.. how many civilians were hurt/killed?
EXACTLY.....
there are enough places of violence to speak of that are bonafide danger zones, Cabo with a homicide rate of 4.5-5 is still one of the lowest in the world, and compares with the US as a country at 5 (Washington DC it is 24!)
Global rate is 7.8
Chihuahua is 75
Upper Baja is 25
baja sur is 4.5-5
who says so.. I am nothing but for my research:
Nation Master
UC Crime & Drug Report
Geneva Declaration on Violence
etc etc etc etc
I have facts to back it up not overblown emotion. These inaccurate overblown sensationalized stories hurt Mexico and its people for no darn good reason
BTW what country is the most violent and highest rate?
Mx is not even close at 17 per capita:
EL Salvador number 1 in the world at 71-75
Hondouras 67
Jamaica 60
Guate 52-55
Venezuela 50
MEXICO IS NUMBER 40 @ 15..... 1/3 OF THE COUNTRY HAS EXTREME VIOLENCE MAKING THE NUMBERS JUMP....2/3 OF MX IS AS LOW OR LOWER THAN THE US...... YUCATAN HAS A RATE OF 2
BTW I contacted my peeps on the ground as soon as the story broke to check on things....."Overblown" "police doing their job nabbing the bad guys"
and lastly...about 6-8 mos ago BB had a post about cabo I remember it saying "CABO HEATS UP". perhaps that day will come when we have to move it to the column of violent states, but for now lets be responsible and careful when saying how unsafe a region is. See if the facts bear it out. so far it does not. God willing it will not.
These cartels are going to kill tourism everywhere eventually. Just another strong economic contribution to Mexico's GDP. Once the legitimate businesses are gone, what will Mexico have left??
ReplyDeleteI just got back from Cabo this week, I was there for 10 days. I live in LA, and I felt safer walking the streets of Cabo at night than I do my city. I actually shopped at that Soriano. Had a great time, great weather, great food...
ReplyDelete9:58..... I wouldn't worry if I were you, you're gonna have a blast
Buela, is that homicide rate your quoting for cabo from before or after the recent shootout?
ReplyDeleteEU CAN BANNED AK47 GRANADES AN AMO FOR SALE IN EU AND TOGHETER WITH MEXICO ARMY STOP AN WIN THIS WAR, WHY NOT TO BANNED ASSOULT RIFLES, GRANADES AND RPG'S ???
ReplyDelete2:10
ReplyDeletenope CDS controls baja sur beltrans are trying to take over
the homicide rate is viturally unchanged for 5 years. so of course it does not include the 4 recent. but in the long run it will not effect the numbers per year over all as it has dropped 1/2 %
ReplyDeleteNow...I will end this by saying what a pal on the ground in Cabo wrote, sadly this morning;
It is too bad that those of social networks made this into something it was not. The military should be getting cheers and kudos for a job well done in stopping the assassins of the commadante. Instead these wild rumors took hold. That makes us sad and upset.... reporting on the comandante in the colectivo pericu....zeta will have the full story very soon I should think"
So yáll can believe in the fantasy for whatever reasons you want, but know when you reject, ignore or do not accept truths, you are damaging the lives of real people....Paz B
Layla
ReplyDeleteI know you care, so why don't you study reports of facts and keep folks advise of the true danger areas and those that are safe? I call and speak to the consulate or his assistant. I realize this is easier for me as a 501C3, but they will actually read off all incidents of violence in a city or region if I so desire. I
I don't take lightly the words I write when saying a place is safe or not. Bad shit happens...everywhere.
that said. take personally responsibility. the consulate told me that people need to
register their itinerary with them.
go to the state department websites
get email updates
know current warnings
follow the safety list of dos or don'ts
this applies to anywhere in the world
Paz
Im not really in a position to judge whether or not Cabo is safe. All i know is that I live in a city with roughly twice as big of a population as Cabo, and the military has never had to chase a dozen gunmen through the town. Bad shit happens everywhere. But here "bad shit" means two guys with hand guns in a chevy impala. Down there "bad shit" means 12 guys with AK's packed into 3 suburbans.
ReplyDelete@ 10:23 anonymous...there were not 12 guys in 3 Suburbans with AK's. Pleeease!!!
ReplyDeleteIs there a curfew in Cabo right now because of that situation????
ReplyDelete9:23 am Im sorry but you got it the other way around Beltran control Cabo.San Lucas and Chapo wantds to take over.Also for that guy saying that he lives in Cabo San Lucas and says its Zetas vs CDS in case you havent noticed Beltran Leyvas dont have a problem with people confusing them with Zetas,Why is that? You might ask, thats because the more heat the Zetas will get and the LESS attention Hector Beltran will get.Hectors always low key.
ReplyDeleteCorrect, no Zetas, it's CDS wanting to take over CDT. No curfew called at this time. 2 casualties, one military and one sicario on Saturday night, two police men injured on that same shooting, no civilians dead or injured. No hostages were taken at Soriana on Saturday afternoon, the police kept people inside the mall and released them in small groups through service hallways, this is why some people thought they were hostages. 6 out of 12 gunmen have been arrested (officially announced). Kudos to the marines who are doing a suberb job, our payers go to them and their families. We want our Cabo back
ReplyDeletethis story hit news in new york tonight
ReplyDeleteI never thought/knew/ the Beltrans ran Cabo, when did this happen? Did Tijuana ever control Cabo? Or when they lost power, did Beltrans, (then under Sinaloa) move in, and that's what remains today?
ReplyDeleteArturo Beltran was also known as "The Lord Of The Seas",he operated mainly in the pacific,operating in port cities like Mazatlan Sinaloa, Puerto Penasco Sonora,Cancun,Acapulco,Puerto Vallarta,it wouldnt be a suprise if he had people in Cabo San Lucas.
ReplyDeleteI'd rather stand on a street corner in Cabo all night with $100 bills hanging out my pockets, than to do the same in Detroit, Oakland, or DC.
ReplyDeletethank you all for verifying what I have known to be true. and that the guy saying the last letter was fighting for Cabo was in error.
ReplyDeleteI thought I blinked and missed something major.
Sorry 3:08 no way you can truly "live there" and state what you did. on all accounts.
I have a house on the four lane, was leaving San Jose on Saturday, October 29th, headed towards Cabo and I wondered why I saw a number of military vehicles going towards Cabo. I shop at Sorianas once in awhile, but I think I will stick to Costco or Walmart now. This type of police action is not going to be good for tourists or residents in the Los Cabos area. And the real estate market will take another hit due to bad publicity!
ReplyDeleteIt seams like all of the pro mexico commentors like to criticize social meda for blowing the story out of proportion. It seams hard to blame social media when the local media in Cabo have such a difficult time printing anything negative. Free press? Not when the majority of your economy depends on keeping the portrait of Cabo pretty. There needs to be more honest reporting. There needs to be more in-depth reporting. Give me a story about the cartels. Give me more eye witness accounts from that day. There was 600 of them for god sake.
ReplyDeleteAs a frequent traveler to Cabo, I am still going to go without hesitancy. The shooting took place miles from the fun parts of town.