Gangsters were on the move in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, shutting down major streets and generating alarm among citizens yesterday.

Residents in the south of the city reported a confrontation between two groups of armed civilians at about 4:00pm.

But when police and military forces attempted to respond they found their way obstructed by blockades of cars, trucks, road spikes and burning tires.

State authorities reported that gangsters erected 11 blockades in the city to evade police pursuit. In several neighborhoods, young men forced residents out of their cars to use the vehicles to block roads.

In others, groups of young men laid out road spikes, damaging several vehicles on Morelos, Hidalgo, Colosio, Viaducto and Solidaridad avenues and the Matamoros-Monterrey highway.

In the north industrial park in the maquiladora factory area, armed civilians commandeered water trucks to block a road and in the Puerta del Sol area another group erected a blockade using buses and set fire to a mound of tires to reduce visibility.

The local newspaper Hoy Tamaulipas reported that security forces were able to remove the vehicles and other obstacles a short time later.

Earlier yesterday, there were armed confrontations on the San Fernando highway and in the neighborhoods of Almendros, Paseo de las Flores and La Retama.

The motivation for the blockades and confrontations between armed groups was not clear, but unofficially the Escorpiones (the Scorpions), a branch of the Gulf Cartel, was involved.

No arrests were made and no injuries were reported as a result of yesterday’s incidents.

Source: Hoy Tamaulipas (sp), El Universal (sp), Excélsior (sp)