{"id":495140,"date":"2026-02-24T00:15:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T00:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/495140\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T00:15:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T00:15:08","slug":"quebec-man-says-he-was-attacked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/495140\/","title":{"rendered":"Quebec man says he was attacked"},"content":{"rendered":"

Quebecers vacationing in the Puerto Vallarta region have found themselves in the middle of the violence and chaos in Mexico. <\/p>\n

Yves Boutin was in the middle of watching Canada play the United States for the gold medal on Sunday in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, when all of a sudden he saw smoke coming from the town. <\/p>\n

The retired Quebecer pulled himself away from the high stakes hockey game and took out his motorcycle with a friend to find out what was happening. <\/p>\n

Once he arrived at the scene, he said he saw several vehicles on fire and stopped to film the carnage with his cellphone. He didn\u2019t know it at the time, but the Mexican army on Sunday killed the leader of a major drug cartel<\/a>, Nemesio Ruben Oseguera Cervantes, known as \u201cEl Mencho.\u201d Violence erupted in the streets of Puerto Vallarta and other Mexican cities in the aftermath of the operation. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was like a war zone,\u201d Boutin said in an interview on Monday. <\/p>\n

\"\"Puerto Vallarta A burned vehicle in the middle of the street in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, on Sunday, Feb. 22, 2026. (Yves Boutin) <\/p>\n

Moments later, he said he came face to face with people he believed to be cartel members, and things took a violent turn. <\/p>\n

Boutin says he was chased for about a kilometre in the streets before he was caught and then attacked. <\/p>\n

Canadians in Mexico told to shelter in place amid violence Canadian tourists in and around Puerto Vallarta have been told to shelter in place after the killing of a cartel leader sparked violence. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe grabbed me, hit me on the face and they put me down and they were really aggressive,\u201d Boutin said. <\/p>\n

He says the assailants then torched his motorcycle in the middle of the street. <\/p>\n

\"\"Yves Boutin Yves Boutin’s burned out motorcycle in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, in the aftermath of the killing of drug cartel leader Nemesio Ruben Oseguera Cervantes. (Yves Boutin) <\/p>\n

A family living nearby told him to take shelter in their home, where he slept overnight as residents were under a shelter-in-place order. <\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t sleep all night because it was running in my head and thinking about what I had done,\u201d he recalled. <\/p>\n

\"\"Puerto Vallarta Smoke billows from a storefront in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, on Sunday, Feb. 22, 2026. (Yves Boutin) <\/p>\n

Boutin is a retired CBC News producer and is used to chasing the news, but he said he never intended to get swept up in it. <\/p>\n

\u201cI want to say that the people of Mexico are really, very kind. They\u2019re not dangerous. It\u2019s so only one part of the cartel that is dangerous,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

He said things have calmed down on Monday. <\/p>\n

Minister of Foreign Affairs Anita Anand said her department has received 440 calls, including two for non-life-threatening injuries. <\/p>\n

Several Canadian airlines have also cancelled their flights from the region for security reasons. <\/p>\n

Another Quebecer who spoke to CTV News by phone and only wants to be named \u201cRaoul\u201d for security reasons says it\u2019s not safe right now in Puerto Vallarta and he\u2019s unsure of who to trust. <\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people walk on the beach and you\u2019re not sure if it\u2019s a citizen or it\u2019s a cartel guy,\u201d he told CTV News. <\/p>\n

His one-week trip was supposed to wrap up on Sunday but that\u2019s when the violence broke out. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been advised not to go in the city because there\u2019s been a lot of shots going on and a lot of bomb explosions. So we try to stay safe,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cEverything is closed, all stores, everything is down, it\u2019s closed. We\u2019re under siege so nothing is moving.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like so many other visitors, they find themselves stranded and stuck in the middle of a deadly confrontation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Quebecers vacationing in the Puerto Vallarta region have found themselves in the middle of the violence and chaos…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":495141,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[712,49,48,295,66],"class_list":["post-495140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-apple-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}