03 January 2024 , 15:26
403
0
An Arizona man was shot at 16 times in the crossfire of gang warfare near the Mexican border.
Craig Ricketts was driving through Mexico from Tempe, Arizona, to visit his son on Christmas Eve, when he was caught in the gunfire, but bears no ill will towards the gunmen who almost killed him. “The bottom line is they don’t know who I am,” said the 68-year-old, who was taking a different route than usual.
Ricketts usually would have driven through the Lukeville Point of Entry, before the checkpoint was closed due to the relocation of US border staff to process asylum seekers on December 4. He was therefore aiming to go through the Nogales port but his GPS re-routed him to a route near the Sasabe Port of Entry, an area the Department of State advises Americans to avoid due to crime levels.
READ MORE:
Ricketts' typical route into the US was closed as US Border Patrol staff were redirected to help process asylum seekers (AFP via Getty Images)While taking the route outside Oquitoa, Sonora, Ricketts was shot at 16 times. “The first thing I noticed was my left window was shattered. I saw a bullet hole through my front window, and my radio was blown out with a bullet,” he told KTVK from the hospital. “I got hit once in my arm, which feels like a bicycle scrape when you’re a kid, and the other is my left leg.”
Baby boy has spent his life in hospital as doctors are 'scared' to discharge him
Ricketts feels no personal animosity towards the gang members who shot him - because he knows they feel no personal animosity towards him. “The bottom line is they don’t know who I am. They just wanted to secure their access for smuggling people,” he said, the New York Post reported.
The Lukeville crossing will reopen tomorrow (January 4) as staff return from processing migrants (AFP via Getty Images)It was the second time an American was caught in the middle of gang violence in Sonora in the last month, according to the Attorney General’s Office in the Mexican state. On December 16, a US resident was killed and two others were injured in a shooting on Federal Highway 2 in Sonora, according to the Arizona Republic.
Federal Highway 2 is often used as a route to get to Puerto Peñasco - otherwise known as Rocky Point - from Nogales. But US citizens have been advised not to travel to Rocky Point until the Lukeville port is reopened again. The crossing is sue to reopen tomorrow (January 4) according to ABC15.
After the shooting, Ricketts was taken to a hospital in Tucson where he was finally reunited with his son, Robert, who he had been travelling to visit. The pair took a photo together in the hospital bed as Ricketts, who has worked in Mexico for over two decades, recovers from his injuries. Ricketts has been building a real estate development in Puerto Libertad for the past seven years - a community which is billed as ‘Mexico’s most exclusive development’ according to the Daily Mail.