The Associated Press
NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico- Authorities on Monday were searching for gunmen who shot to death a state police officer and a second man in separate assaults in this violence-plagued city across the U.S. border from Laredo, Texas.
State police officer Jose Noel Vives was shot 15 times as he left his fiancee’s house on Sunday night. He died instantly, said police investigator Eduardo Anaya.
In a separate incident hours before dawn Monday, two brothers were shot by unidentified attackers during a family gathering at their house, Anaya said.
Arturo Puente Alonso, 28, died at a hospital after receiving two gunshot wounds, to the head and abdomen. His brother Luis Enrique, 30, suffered a nonfatal gunshot wound to the right arm.
Nuevo Laredo is on the front line of a battle between Mexico’s two main drug gangs, who are fighting to control coveted smuggling routes into the United States.
No one had been arrested in either assault.