Daylight Monday revealed more damage in Puerto Vallarta, where burned-out buses line the Malecón seaside boardwalk just blocks from where two Lansing men are sheltering in place.
“We got brave and took our dog for a walk,” Berl Schwartz said in a message to WKAR News Monday morning. “It was eerily quiet.”
Schwartz and his partner, Caleb Woloszyn-Duffy, have been hunkering down in the popular tourist town after violence erupted Sunday following the reported killing of a powerful cartel leader by Mexico’s military.
The Mexican military reportedly killed Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho,” during a security operation targeting the Jalisco New Generation cartel. U.S. officials provided information that assisted in the operation, according to national news reports.
Schwartz is the former publisher of City Pulse, a Lansing newspaper.
“We’re apprehensive,” Schwartz said Sunday evening. “We have never seen anything approaching the level of violence we saw in Puerto Vallarta today.”
The U.S. State Department issued a security alert early Sunday, urging Americans in Puerto Vallarta, Cancun, Tijuana and other tourist destinations across Mexico to shelter in place.
Schwartz said he saw the alert online.
While no airports have officially closed, roadblocks have disrupted airline operations, and some domestic and international flights in Puerto Vallarta were canceled, according to the security alert. Some businesses also shut down for the day.
Schwartz said a friend told him the streets were empty and a local Catholic church did not open for Sunday services.
“It’s almost as if people knew to stay off the streets,” he said.
Social media has been flooded with images of cars, buses and businesses set on fire.
Schwartz and Woloszyn-Duffy reported seeing military helicopters overhead and convoys moving through their neighborhood.
Schwartz said cartel members were reportedly pulling people from their vehicles and setting the vehicles on fire. He believes the property destruction is retaliation for the killing.
“We don’t think it’s safe to go outside,” Schwartz said. “We’ll see what the next two or three days bring.”
Schwartz said they had planned to return to Lansing in late April but may leave sooner if conditions worsen.