Prison Gang Member Allegedly Shoots at Texas Border Sheriff's Deputies

Prison Gang Member Allegedly Shoots at Texas Border Sheriff's Deputies

MCALLEN, Texas — Sheriff’s deputies, in the Texas border county of Starr, are looking for a prison gang member who allegedly shot at them over the weekend striking one of their patrol vehicles. 

Information released from Starr County Sheriff’s Office shows the alleged shooting took place Saturday, just after 1:30 a.m., in a residential area just west of Rio Grande City. Officials responded to a call of a man, identified as Juan Antonio Perez, shooting off a gun.

As deputies approached the area on Lito Garza Street, Perez allegedly fired one shot at deputies before fleeing. Border Patrol agents and Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) troopers arrived at the area to help search for the suspect, but the suspect managed to elude capture. 

Sheriff’s investigators told Breitbart Texas that Perez is a member of the Valluco gang which is tied to the Tango Blast and is considered to be armed and dangerous. 

Rio Grande City lies on the border with Mexico and is the general area where sheriff’s deputies responded to a triple homicide earlier this month, there they found four grenades and other assault weapons. In that case, federal agents were called in to look into the weapons while investigators looked into the homicide. 

Just 30 miles east of Rio Grande City is La Joya, Texas, where a member of another prison gang barricaded himself in a house, in Hidalgo County, last month after shooting two police officers leading to an hours long standoff and shootout. In that case, 29-year-old Joaquin Cibrian, a member of the Texas Syndicate prison gang, armed with a semi-automatic rifle, fired at police for hours eventually dying in a hail of gunfire where more than 500 shots were exchanged. Cibrian had an outstanding warrant for capital murder for the execution style murder of a Mexican national in Edinburg, Texas over a missing drug load. Investigators later told Breitbart Texas that Cibrian had some connections with the Gulf Cartel in Mexico.

Follow Ildefonso Ortiz on Twitter:@ildefonsoortiz

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