Three people were fatally shot and a teenage boy was left in a coma after an attack on an American family visiting Mexico, authorities said Monday.
Brothers Vicente Peña Jr., 38, and Antonio “Tony” Fernandez, 44, were visiting Durango, Mexico, from their home in Chicago over the weekend, local NBC affiliate WMAQ reported. They were traveling with Peña’s 14-year-old son, who has not been publicly identified.
The three Americans met another relative, 22-year-old Jorge Eduardo Vargas Aguirre, in the city about 300 miles west of Monterrey, according to WMAQ.
But cops said the group of four was attacked while driving in a GMC Yukon with Illinois license plates on Friday night in Durango’s Las Palmas neighborhood, WMAQ reported.
“It was a massacre….because my son was shot four times in the head and once in the shoulder, and the other boy was also shot four times, once in the shoulder, and the other boy who was with them was also shot three times,” Vicente Peña Sr. told the station.
Peña, Fernandez and Vargas Aguirre were all fatally shot. The 14-year-old boy remained in a coma in a Mexican hospital on Tuesday.
No suspects have been arrested or identified, and investigators were unsure whether the attack was random or targeted because the victims were American.
Durango is not considered one of the most violent states or cities in Mexico, according to the U.S. State Department. It is listed on the department’s website at the same risk level as Mexico City.
However, a portion of the state is officially off limits to U.S. government employees, and that portion includes the city’s Las Palmas neighborhood where the family was attacked.
