LA FERIA, Texas—An apparent armed drug rip-crew that prepared to raid a house near the Texas border set off a massive manhunt that resulted in lockdowns on multiple area schools. Such groups rob drug shipments or loads from cartel stash houses and operatives.
Update Tuesday, 4:55 p.m. CDT: The lockdown of the schools has been lifted. Police continue search for armed gunmen.
Details of the failed home invasion remain unclear, however, authorities confirm the arrest of at least two gunmen while they continue to search for several others.
Preliminary information provided to Breitbart Texas by law enforcement officials at the scene points to the multiple gunmen being part of a rip crew that was preparing to rob a house. They fled on foot, leaving behind vehicles, weapons, and body armor.
Cameron County Sheriff’s Deputies, Texas State Troopers, La Feria Police and other agencies continue to search for the gunmen along city streets. Various schools in the rural areas near the manhunt have been placed on lockdown.
Home invasions in this particular area of the Texas border generally deal with multiple, heavily-armed men storming houses where they suspect drug smugglers hid drug shipments or cash.
The drugs are stashed by cartels tied smuggling groups that pick them up at the border and hide them until the group can send their shipment north past the U.S. Border Patrol checkpoints along the major U.S. highways going north
The home invasions tend to take place among the criminal element and at times are not reported to authorities. However, as reported by Breitbart Texas in the past, there have been cases in which the gunmen the wrong house and injure innocent civilians.
Just last May, 15 heavily armed members of a rip-crew stormed a house near the border city of Harlingen and ended up shooting a 33-year-old woman and her young child. The gunmen had raided the wrong house.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award winning journalist with Breitbart Texas you can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.
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