At Least Five Dead in Cancun Shootout

Translated by Yaqui for Borderland Beat from: El Pais

July 28, 2018
By: Rafael Martínez | Correspondent

Five people have died and two were injured after  a shooting in Cancun , Quintana Roo. The first versions point out that it is a confrontation between policemen and assassins occurred at 10:45 pm  (local time) Friday night. At least one ministerial agent has died and another is wounded, as reported by the State Government in a statement.

The event has occurred in Puerto Juarez, about 15 kilometers from the hotel zone of this well-known Mexican city, in the local Mar Azul, a center ( often called Salons in Mx) that is rented for meetings and parties and not in a restaurant as indicated by the first versions. 

Military sources told the newspaper Reforma that there were at least seven ministerial police at a party there when a group of about 20 armed men arrived and opened fire at the agents. The authorities have ruled out that there are foreigners among the victims, even though it is an area frequented by visitors because it is the starting point for the ferry to Isla Mujeres.

At the scene of the events the emergency teams moved to attend to the injured. The Ministry of Public Security, the Municipal Police of Benito Juarez, the Ministerial, the Federal, the Army and the Navy activated the security protocols and investigate what happened.

Cancun lives a dark wave of terror and blood that hits the heart of the hotel industry in the country where about 2.5% of the Gross Domestic Product is produced.

In January of this year Mexico sent 5000 more Federal police to four states: Quintana Roo, BCS, Colima and  Jalisco in effort to protect one of Mexico’s most precious resources; ie tourism.

At the time of the attack, thousands of young Americans, Brazilians, Europeans and Mexicans were enjoying themselves, oblivious to the shooting at Bulevard Kukulcán, the heart of partying in this Caribbean city. This is not the first time that the Mexican tourist jewel suffers the violence of organized crime.

In June of 2017, a 20-minute shootout in the center of the capital caused panic among tourists . In January of that year, in Playa del Carmen, a city near Cancun, an armed group opened fire on the customers of a nightclub , leaving five dead and 15 wounded.

Experts attribute the increase in violence to the weakness of the traditional cartels that controlled the area and the strategic location of Cancun: place of transit, arrival and consumption of a significant part of the cocaine that passes through the Caribbean.

With almost 900,000 inhabitants, Cancun is, along with Cuba, the main destination of the Caribbean and with its paradisiacal beaches 25% of all the money that enters the country through tourism, the second source of income for Mexico after remittances.

Meanwhile last week on July 20:

Two street vendors were shot in Playa Tortugas, Cancún in broad daylight and in front of dozens of tourists there was a fight between merchants, witnesses pointed out they were possibly presumed sellers of drugs.

Two ambulatory vendors  were injured by firearms in Playa Tortugas, in broad daylight and in the presence of tens or hundreds of people, in a dispute between alpaca sellers , who are similarly accused of selling drugs.

The 911 emergency number received the alert call, reporting two injured at kilometer 4.5 of the Kukulkan Boulevard in the Hotel Zone, right on Playa Tortugas , so the Red Code was immediately activated.

In a matter of minutes the area was cordoned off by elements of the Tourist Police and Municipal Police, who upon arrival found the lifeguards of the area who were already giving first aid to the injured.

Witnesses told them that the injured were street vendors, which moments before had argued with other subjects who work with them , so when the discussion arose, the physical attacks began until one of them took out a weapon and fired several times.

When listening to the detonations, the dozens of families that were on the beach began to run to avoid being injured by a bullet and  many threw themselves onto the sand in terror of what was happening.

After a few minutes, paramedics from the private company transferred the injured to the IMSS on Coba Avenue, where their health status was reported as stable, which is why agents of the Ministerial Police went to the hospital to interview them.

The week prior to that 8 people died and one more has been seriously injured in two armed attacks on Thursday , July 19 in the Caribbean resort town of Cancun , reported the Attorney General's Office of the southeastern Mexican state of Quintana Roo.

In the first attack, an armed group traveling in a car and a motorcycle shot several people who were in a food stall: 2 people died on the spot and one more died while being taken to a hospital .

In the second attack, armed persons entered a residence in Cancún and fired at the 6 occupants, three men and three women, causing five deaths and one seriously injured .

The emergency services confirmed that the injured was admitted to a hospital of the Mexican Social Security Institute . This morning, authorities found the body of a person bound hand and foot and was killed by several bullet wounds. With the eight dead of the two attacks and the body found hours before, the number of people executed in Cancun so far this year rises to 107. ( as of July 19, 2019)