Booty Lounge grenade linked to consulate, TV station attacks

A live grenade tossed into a Pharr bar last month came from the same cache of weapons used in recent attacks on a Monterrey television station and that city's U.S. Consulate, law enforcement officials said.

Investigators have traced the explosives used in each incident to a lot manufactured in South Korea and later discovered in a stash house believed to be run by the Zetas, the heavily armed paramilitary wing of the Tamaulipas-based Gulf Cartel.

While authorities on both sides of the border believe the Monterrey attacks and the incident nearly two weeks ago at Pharr's El Booty Lounge are unrelated, the link between the weapons suggests close cooperation between the Mexican cartel and local gangs north of the border.

The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' Bomb Data Center outlined the connection last week in an unclassified bulletin distributed to local law enforcement agencies.

When asked about the grenades Tuesday, ATF spokeswoman Franceska Perot confirmed the memo had been sent but declined to confirm her agency's findings.

But according to several local investigators who have reviewed the document, matching serial numbers draw a clear line between the Pharr and Monterrey attacks.

The first attack, which occurred in October, targeted the front gates of the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey. Two gunmen rammed their car into the barrier, firing several rounds from an automatic weapon and tossing a grenade that failed to detonate.

Three months later, another grenade was used in an attack on Monterrey's Televisa affiliate in the midst of the nightly newscast. Gunmen in that incident opened fire on the studio, briefly interrupted the live broadcast and left a message warning reporters to cut back coverage of the violent drug cartels.

Mexican authorities suspect the Zetas were behind both episodes. No serious injuries were reported in either.

The ATF first tracked the weapons cache north of the border only after the Hidalgo County Sheriff's Office requested the agency's assistance in the Booty Lounge case, local law enforcement officials said.

On Jan. 31, an unknown individual tossed a live grenade into the nightspot on the 3700 block of North "I" Road. An off-duty Pharr police officer drinking at the bar grabbed it and lobbed it back outside. The ordnance failed to detonate because one of the pins had not been removed.

Investigators have not yet identified a suspect in the attack but do not believe the Zetas were directly involved. It's more likely, they said, that a dispute between two local gangs prompted the incident.

Several top leaders of the Texas Chicano Brotherhood prison gang are believed to have been drinking at the Booty Lounge that night and may have been targeted by members of the rival Tri-City Bombers gang.

The two groups have sparred with each other in recent weeks in attacks across the Pharr-San Juan-Alamo area, according to law enforcement officials from several local agencies.

While it remains unclear how the cartel grenades made their way into the hands of the Booty Lounge attacker, state and federal officials have tracked a heightened level of cooperation between Mexican drug trafficking organization and U.S. gang members over the past several months.

Increasingly, the Gulf Cartel has come to rely upon these U.S. groups to control wholesale narcotics distribution north of the border, according to a report issued late last year by the National Drug Intelligence Center.

Gov. Rick Perry has asked the state Legislature to approve a $24 million initiative to combat the growing threat of gang involvement, fearing an escalation of cartel-style violence along Texas' southern border.

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Monitor staff writer Ana Ley contributed to this report.

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Jeremy Roebuck covers courts and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4437.