Mexican politicians are working to downplay a recent cartel shootout that spread terror through the border city of Matamoros, Tamaulipas. Their attempts to downplay the raging violence follow a longstanding trend of claiming cartel-controlled cities are safe.
In the most recent clash in Matamoros, various public safety buildings were struck by dozens of bullets, but public officials continue to claim that all is well.
The firefight took place on Thursday shortly after 1 a.m. near the Expo Fiesta neighborhood, when Tamaulipas state police officers tried to stop a late-model luxury vehicle. This led to a fierce gunfight as dozens of cartel vehicles filled with gunmen rushed to the scene to clash with authorities. Information from law enforcement sources provided to Breitbart Texas revealed that relatives of cartel leaders were in the initial vehicle, leading to a violent response by their security detail and a subsequent response by additional cartel gunmen.
The shootout went on for several hours and spread out to various surrounding neighborhoods in the southern part of the city as the individuals in the initial vehicle were able to escape while the gunmen fought off law enforcement. Authorities seized a black late-model Cadillac Escalade, believed to be the vehicle that sparked the initial clash.
Locals shared various videos that captured the sound of the intense shootout. In the aftermath of the clash, the public safety building in Matamoros had sustained over 30 impacts from gunfire, while the toll booth at the entrance had close to 10 other impacts.
Despite the intensity of the shootout, Matamoros city mayor Beto Granados tried to downplay the fighting, claiming it was a security incident and that police buildings had not been targeted but simply struck by stray gunfire.
Just one day before the shootout, Mexican Tamaulipas Representative Humberto Prieto, who hails from the country’s ruling party MORENA, had claimed during a public event in that city that the region was flourishing and being reborn under the leadership of Granados.
En el marco del bicentenario de Matamoros, celebramos aquí la cuarta sesión itinerante del Congreso del Estado, en el emblemático Teatro de la Reforma, cuna de nuestro Himno a Tamaulipas.
Venimos a legislar de frente a su gente y a honrar 200 años de historia con trabajo y… pic.twitter.com/HIcnorXpf0
— Humberto Prieto (@Betoprietoh) February 11, 2026
Editor’s Note: Breitbart News Foundation traveled to Mexico City and the states of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Nuevo León to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities. The writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that operate in those areas, including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas, if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart News Foundation’s Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and their original Spanish. This article was written by “Francisco Morales,” “J.A. Espinoza,” and “J.C. Sanchez” from Tamaulipas.
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