SKEPTICS QUESTION ASSAULT ON MATA MAYOR

By Juan Montoya
A Reynosa newspaper's headlines questions: "Atentado o Equivocacion?"
And so, in the aftermath of the reported attack Sunday against Matamoros Mayor Norma Leticia Salazar Vazquez on the streets of this border town and the lighting fast apprehension of four men who confessed making the attack, doubts are  being raised on whether the public is getting the real story.
Was it a real attack?
Didn't the four men in a single car said to be cartel members know the Mayor's convoy of three SUVs?
And how could they mistake the well-known armored vehicle (A dark Chevrolet Tahoe ) being guarded by two others carrying at least eight armed guards for those of a a rival gang?
As the questions abound, it is also instructive to see that none of the major newspapers in Matamoros (El Bravo and El Expreso) carried any stories about the attack of their city's mayor. Why not?
The attack reportedly happened at about 8 p.m. Sunday and the municipal spokesperson said that the mayor was on her way home. After the attack, she was said to have suffered a nervous breakdown and was taken to the Matamoros municipal office instead.
Several theories are being bandied about on the "attack."
Was it merely a warning, a shot a cross the bow, because Salazar has taken the side of one or the other cartels battling for control of the city? Surely if an armed group aimed to kill her, it would have been more than a single car shooting at three armored vehicles.
Was it a case of mistaken identity as the alleged gunmen claim?
Or could it have been a publicity stunt to curry sympathy in the face of mounting criticism against her administration in light of the role her paramilitary force El Grupo Hercules in the death of three American siblings and a Mexican companion in El Control?
Just two Saturdays ago, Salazar was confronted by their mother during the Charro Days parade with a banner demanding justice in their deaths and calling her "asesina."
Mexican online media is also carrying accounts and photos of Salazar and Luis Alfredo Biasi her director of Social Development, carousing in a nightclub in  San Pedro,Nuevo Leon, near Monterrey,  until about 4 a.m. Thje photos were taken of the couple in the  Bar “La Barca Bar in San Pedro.
Reports indicate that she and Biasi drank, danced and partied until well past the legal closing time of the establishment.
The bar specializes in "Megatarros," or mega beer mugs.
It is noteworthy that during her the time she has been mayor, Salazar has prohibited the operation of such nightclubs in Matamoros, including the selling and consumption of whiskey as she was doing with Biasi in Nuevo Leon.
That same day, at about 8 p.m., the "assault" was reported in Matamoros.
 Biasi, who is free under bond after he was arrested on Dec. 20 and incarcerated in the maximum security prison in Nayarit, continues to head Social Development under Salazar. He is suspected by the Procuradoria General de la Republica (Dept. of Justice) to be one of the leading smugglers and money launderers in Mexico, introducing automobiles into the country using a network of crooked judges and fiscal administrators that have made him a millionaire and whose money propelled Salazar into the mayorship of Matamoros.
Social media critics have discounted the "assault" upon Salazar as a ploy to elicit sympathy from the public – principally on the U.S. side o the border and refurbish her tarnished image.
The Brownsville Herald carried the story on the front pages of both its Spanish and English editions and Mayor Tony Martinez made disapproving and sympathetic noises by telephone from Washington D.C. where he is traveling on an undisclosed business.
Photos in the social media and witnesses who were at La Barca Bar in San Pedro indicate the mayor – who has launched a campaign in Matamoros against vice, alcohol, and adultery – was seen staggering with Biasi out of the Nuevo Leon bar.