On Sunday, February 22, The U.S. Embassy in Mexico issued an alert for tourists in Puerto Vallarta to “shelter in place until further notice” as violence broke out in the state of Jalisco.
The reason for such an alert was prompted by the reported death of Nemesio Oseguera — known as “El Mencho” and identified as the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.
American tourist Jim Beck posted a video on social media shared by CNN that describes his experience.
“We've been coming down here for almost 20 years and we've always told people to come down and check it out because you always feel safe here. We've never ever not felt safe, and today was the first day as we left the hotel to go out breakfast and saw all the craziness going on and the violence and the smoke that we were actually terrified. And we saw the people running down the streets, running from the flames and stuff and the fire and we ran back to the and that's when they got the shelter in order place and we've been here all day. And we're staying at Hotel Eloise and there's no restaurant or bar or anything here. So we've all been here without anything all day and the staff has been great running and grabbing stuff and bringing us some snacks and some water and stuff, but it's been pretty scary as you can see from the videos and pictures shared that you're blocks away is where all of it’s happening. And all the OXXO’s they burnt down, all of the little OXXO’s, so there's been little fires and stuff all over the city around us where it's normally fun and nice and people walking around and all the little local restaurants and all the locals being locked up and hidden with us too. And there's a few homeless people that were brought into this hotel they allowed in so that they had some place to go too. So it's been quite surreal knowing this warm wonderful place that we come to visit a couple times a year is in lockdown and just terrifying for all the people.”
Additional videos posted online show black smoke rising from vehicle fires as the cartel blocked roadways.
The chaotic scene led to many flight cancellations.
Travelers in the area should check with their airline directly for up to the minute status of their flights.
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