Rocky Point Tourists Alert.

Tourists in a popular Mexican resort town considered mostly safe from the country’s violent drug war have been warned about a recent shootout involving members of a drug cartel and several attacks targeting Americans.
The town, Puerto Peñasco — or Rocky Point — lies about 100 miles south from the Arizona border in Sonora state and is well known for its resort hotels, coastline and sizeable American expat community.
On Tuesday, the U.S. consulate in Nogales issued a warning about several recent incidents in Rocky Point, “including a home invasion and assault that left a U.S. citizen severely injured. In a separate incident, vacationers, many of whom were U.S. citizens, were victims of a home invasion during which adults and children were held at gunpoint while the house was robbed and a woman was sexually assaulted."
The statement also informed visitors about a July 19 shooting in which six people were killed in a shootout, among them a local figure in the Sinaloa drug cartel.
There have been more than 50,000 drug-related homicides in Mexico over the past six years and tourism has suffered under gruesome headlines of beheadings and abductions.
Much of the violence has been clustered in border towns like Juarez — Mexico’s most violent city — and in areas as diverse as the tourist hotspot of Acapulco and the central Jalisco state.
Drug-related crime is notably lower in tourism-dependent Sonora, which has struggled not to be lumped in with more statistically dangerous places.
"We're not telling people not to go to Rocky Point . . . we’re just alerting them to what happened,” consulate official Chad Cummins told The Arizona Republic of Tuesday’s warning.
Experts on Mexico’s drug war think violence is lower in Sonora because it is controlled by a single cartel — the Sinaloa.
Some DEA agents believe the July 19 shooting could point to a possible turf battle emerging in the area.
“You don't see someone take out a bunch of people . . . unless one of two things is happening: a problem within the cartel or another cartel creeping into the territory," retired DEA agent Anthony Coulson told The Republic.
Local officials dismiss the notion.
“This was an isolated incident that took place far from the tourist areas," said Fernando Soto, Puerto Peñasco's director of international relations.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/visitors-warned-violence-mexico-tourist-hot-spot-article-1.1127443#ixzz22WZe5pOv