Mexican army remains silent after Nuevo Progreso attack

NUEVO PROGRESO — Mexican authorities refused to release details Monday of the deadly weekend shooting that sent hundreds of American tourists scurrying for cover as at least two people were gunned down.

No U.S. casualties have been reported in the Saturday afternoon gun battle that erupted at the end of a city-organized celebration to welcome Winter Texans back to this popular tourist spot. While two people were reportedly killed, it is unclear whether rumors of higher death tolls are unfounded or if any bystanders were harmed in the volley of gunfire.

U.S. authorities offered few details of their own, saying Mexican officials have not been forthcoming with them either.

The shootout, which broke out about 2 p.m. Saturday along the town’s crowded main street, renewed fears that Mexico’s blood-soaked drug war is spilling into normally quiet locales such as Nuevo Progreso, which had been relatively free of violence that has killed thousands across Mexico since late 2006.

Roberto Benet Ramos, the mayor of Rio Bravo, downplayed the shooting, saying it was an isolated incident. He declined to provide more details, saying that any information would come from Federal authorities. Nuevo Progreso is a neighborhood of the Rio Bravo municipality.

“This is not something that happens everyday. We are very sorry about it because it effects the economy, but we believe that the tourism will return,” Benet said by phone Monday. “God willing, this incident will never happen again.”

Mexican army reportedly battled with gunmen less than an hour after hundreds of Winter Texans — retirees from the U.S. and Canada who winter in the Rio Grande Valley — danced, ate, drank and gambled during the city’s annual “Welcome Back Winter Texans Fiesta.” Most lingered after the festivities ended about 1 p.m. that day.

Mexican officials said the shootout began when gunmen in a pickup truck entered the city from the south, opened fire and crashed at an intersection several blocks south of the international bridge. Witnesses reported hearing rumors the truck was running from a gun battle in a neighboring city.

Amid the volley of bullets people fled into nearby stores while some simply hit the ground. Others scrambled north for the international bridge. Witnesses praised the city’s retailers and barkeepers who they said quickly locked doors and helped stranded visitors hide.

“They are sick about this whole thing,” said Gayen Borgen, a Winter Texan who lives in Pharr. “They value their town, they value their security, they are heartbroken.”

Borgen, who said she would return to the city, was in a nearby casino when the shooting began. She hid there until just after 5 p.m.

“Some of the merchants had told me, if I’m ever in trouble, just go to their place of business and they would take me to their homes,” she said.

Law enforcement in the U.S. set up posts on the American side of the international bridge, which was shuttered to southbound traffic for several hours after the shooting. Streams of Winter Texans fled northbound back to the U.S. in the early evening after the chaos that gripped the city died down.

Mexican soldiers continued to investigate the shooting scene after the bridge reopened about 5:30 p.m. Saturday. An army spokesman in Reynosa refused to provide details about the battle, casualties or possible arrests, saying he was not authorized to release any information.

A woman at the Mexican embassy’s press office in Washington D.C. said she would return a call seeking comment Monday evening. No call was ever received.

Mexican media reports of the shooting were scant.  One news Web site appeared to have removed an earlier story that reported about six fatalities after the incident Saturday.

Nuevo Progreso is entirely dependent on tourism, especially from Winter Texans who flood the city’s cottage industry of pharmacies and dentists for cheap prescription drugs and medical care.

The shootout Saturday happened along Juarez Avenue, the town’s main drag, which hosts scores of street vendors, tourist-themed retail stores and restaurants, pharmacies and dentists.

George Garrett, homeland security director for Weslaco and Donna, said authorities on both sides of the border are concerned that the recent violence will taint Nuevo Progreso’s reputation as a tourist haven free of the violence that has spilled onto city streets in Reynosa, Matamoros and neighboring Rio Bravo.

“You couldn’t have picked up a worst time to have something like this happen,” Garrett said.

For now it appears those fears are unfounded, as tourists crowded the city’s streets on Monday. Some said if the violence continued that they would stop going entirely, as many Winter Texans have stopped going to cities such as Reynosa and Matamoros.

Alfonso Treviño Salinas, who heads Nuevo Progreso’s chamber of commerce, said he was encouraged at the large turnout as he sat down for lunch after the snowbird fiesta Saturday. That satisfaction shifted to disbelief after he heard gunshots popping in the street, he said.

“It will affect us, clearly,” Salinas said in Spanish of the shootout’s impact Monday afternoon. “Without tourism, we are nothing.”

Carolina Castro, a 30-year-old street vendor who migrated to the border from an indigenous village in the mountains of southwest Mexico when she was a teenager, said she was more concerned about stiffer U.S. passport requirements and the recession, which has pinched some retirees’ spending, than the weekend shootout. Business was “so-so” as she wrapped compact discs in plastic sleeves late Monday afternoon, she said.

“They say, ‘I have it; I don’t need it,’” Castro said of foreigners confronted by the jewelry and music she vends. “They buy what they need, like medicine or the dentist — not much like other years.”

Saturday’s street violence was significant in that it was believed to be the first to strike Nuevo Progreso, but comes three years after Mexican President Felipe Calderón declared war on the drug cartels that have gripped his nation. More than 14,000 people have been slain since December 2006, when Calderón first deployed thousands of army soldiers to infiltrate government corruption and fight the cartels.

Ciudad Juarez, which shares its border with El Paso, has been the epicenter for Mexican cartel violence and infamously boasts one of the world’s highest murder rates. The Mexican state of Tamaulipas, which borders the Rio Grande Valley, has been wracked by drug violence as well, but not at the levels further north along the Rio Grande.

Don Gray is a Saskatchewan farmer who has wintered in the Rio Grande Valley with his wife the past 14 years. Gray arrived at the Progreso International Bridge to cross with his family Saturday afternoon, but authorities had already shut it down after the gunfight.

Despite that, Gray went across the border with his wife Monday afternoon to show their grown children a taste of Mexico.

“We feel safe over here all the time,” the 65-year-old said. “With the military around, it makes it feel safe.”

The Mexican army soldiers who stoically greet visitors at the bridge first came to Nuevo Progreso in early 2008 after suspected cartelmen lobbed a grenade into a federal police vehicle in Reynosa and left two officers dead. The reprisal attack came one day after federal officers and army soldiers battled in Rio Bravo, injuring 10 and killing three cartel members.

In 2007, the former mayor of Rio Bravo, who lost in an election that November to the current mayor, was gunned down outside a restaurant by suspected members of the Gulf Cartel.

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Monitor staff writer Martha L. Hernandez contributed to this report.

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Sean Gaffney covers business and general assignments for The Monitor. Jared Taylor covers law enforcement and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach them at (956) 683-4000.