Gunfire erupted on an idyllic beach in Cancun, Mexico, on Thursday that resulted in the killings of two suspected gang members and sent stunned tourists fleeing into nearby hotels for cover.
“I’ve never been so scared, literally shaking,” Mike Sington, who is a guest at the Hyatt Ziva Riviera Cancun, posted on Twitter. “I’m fine now, barricaded in my hotel room for the night, just trying to decompress.
The gunmen arrived at the beach by boat and sought out the individuals they intended to kill, Reuters reported, citing a senior state official. Another official told the news agency that the shootings seems to be the result of a targeted execution on the beach.
Evidence suggests that the shooting was the result of some kind of turf war. The two individuals killed had apparently arrived at the beach in front of the Azul Beach Resort and the Hyatt Ziva Riviera Cancun earlier in the day, claiming it was now their territory.
<strong>The U.S. embassy in Mexico said consulate officials were looking into social media reports of shots being fired at a resort in Cancun. (Mike Sington/Handout via REUTERS)</strong>
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“About 15 people arrived on the beach to assassinate two men who had showed up saying they were the new dealers in the area,” the head prosecutor of Quintana Roo state, Oscar Montes de Oca, told the Radio Formula station. Authorities said no tourists were seriously injured or kidnapped.
Andrew Krop told Fox News his husband was at the resort performing for the Vacaya gay vacation group.
Krop said his husband told him he heard gunshots and barricaded himself inside a room for about an hour before resort guests were escorted into the lobby and told they were safe.
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Former Mexican Senator Claudia Anaya likened the tourists’ experience at the resort to a “horror movie,” saying that the problem of violence in Mexico is no longer confined to just the streets.
“Today, from a horror movie what tourists have experienced in an exclusive hotel in #Cancun,” she tweeted in Spanish. “Do you think tourists want to keep coming to share our tragedy?”
The Associated Press contributed to this report
