[editor’s note: Until this year, my perception of the violence in Mexico has been concentrated between rival drug gangs. Recently, more Americans and tourists have become victims. Baja’s #1 tourist destination, Cabo San Lucas, experienced a large gun battle this weekend. While Cabo is 1,000 miles south, the drug war seems to be escalating throughout the Baja peninsula.]
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 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.
EXPAT in BAJA Mexico 