Grenade Found Near Scene of Shooting Along Texas-Mexico Border

Grenade Found Near Scene of Shooting Along Texas-Mexico Border

MCALLEN, Texas–Starr County investigators continue to work the scene of a shooting where a grenade was found in an area just west of Rio Grande City along the Texas-Mexico border.

Shortly after 6 a.m. authorities responded to an area near the intersection of Alvarez Road and Rosario Street for a shooting with multiple victims.Sources close to the investigation told Breitbert Texas that the shooting left three men dead who are suspected of being tied to drug smuggling in the area.Starr County Sheriff Larry Fuentes confirmed that his department was investigating a shooting and that it was a very complex investigation. The sheriff’s office told Breitbart Texas that the incident was a triple homicide, and that one of the victims had been rushed to the hospital where he later died. 

McAllen Police dispatched their explosives disposal unit to the area to deal with what appeared to be a grenade. 

Sylvia Longmire, Breitbart Texas contributing editor and border security expert, said, “This isn’t the first time grenades have been associated with criminal activity in south Texas. In 2009, an unidentified individual threw a live grenade into El Booty Lounge, a strip club in Pharr where several top leaders of the Texas Chicano Brotherhood prison gang were believed to have been drinking. Several days after the incident, authorities raided a home in the area and arrested three Tri-City Bombers gang members, leading authorities to believe the incident was related to a gang rivalry. Former Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Treviño told The Monitor at the time, “You don’t buy hand grenades one at a time. You buy them by the crate. We have to assume there are more out there.” The markings on the grenade found after the Pharr incident associated it with a crate of grenades belonging to the Gulf Cartel, and other grenades from that lot were used in attacks on a Monterrey, Mexico television station and that city’s US Consulate. Currently there is no information to link the grenade in the Rio Grande City incident to a Mexican cartel, but if that connection is there, hopefully local authorities–in conjunction with the ATF and other federal agencies–will find it.

Follow Ildefonso Ortiz on Twitter @ildefonsoortiz.

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