Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
CANCUN, Mexico (AP) — Gunmen on water scooters shot at a roving vendor on a beach in Cancun's glittering hotel zone Thursday, an incident believed to be unprecedented for the Caribbean city. Nobody was wounded.
According to a police report, the afternoon shooting happened in front of a hotel in the heart of Cancun's resort-studded strip.
The vendor ran for safety inside a restaurant and was not hurt. Tourist police cordoned off the area and recovered four bullets but were not able to locate the intended target.
Cancun — especially its tourist areas — has largely been spared the worst of the cartel-fueled violence afflicting many other parts of Mexico.
But there have been a number of eye-catching incidents of late as gangs fight for control of local drug dealing, and the city has registered 130 murders so far this year.
Also Thursday, police reported that three people were slain outside a bar located away from the hotel zone.
Cancun police have no record of any prior attack involving personal watercraft in the city, though assailants have been known to use the vehicles in Acapulco, on the other side of the country. In 2016, a gunman killed a sarong vendor on the beach there and then fled on a water scooter.
Earlier week a man was killed on Acapulco's Caletilla beach in a shooting that authorities attributed to a dispute over local drug sales, just the latest in a string of violent incidents in the city's coastal tourist zones.
Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
