In what could be described as a scene from a movie, tourists at a four-star Cancun resort ran for their lives after several armed men pulled up to the beach on jet skis and opened fire.
The incident happened Tuesday outside the Oasis Palm resort on Mexico's Caribbean coast.
Witnesses told police that the gunmen -- as many as five by some reports -- pulled up on their jet skis and fired at least 20 shots.
"What I saw was them shooting up into the sky," Rick Lebassa, a tourist from Maine, told the Associated Press. "I did not see any shots coming in toward the shoreline."
Kerry Arms, who was visiting from Minnesota, said tourists went running for cover.
"There was a delayed reaction for about maybe five seconds, then everybody started scrambling and screaming and crying, and running,” Arms told the AP.
Police said the gunmen fired into the air without aiming at any people. No injuries were reported.
After the shooting, the men changed into civilian clothing, abandoned their jet skis and took off running.
Quintana Roo Police Chief Lucio Hernandez said the jet skis have been seized. Investigators are still trying to identify and locate the suspects.
The shooting is the latest in a string of drug-related violence along the resort-studded Quintana Roo region, which includes Cancun, Playa del Carmen the Riviera Maya and Cozumel.
On Wednesday, one day after the shooting, the U.S. issued a travel advisory warning American tourists to "exercise extreme caution" when traveling in the Quintana Roo state.
"Criminal activity and violence, including homicide, occur throughout the state," the advisory reads. "Most homicides appear to be targeted; however, criminal organization assassinations and turf battles between criminal groups have resulted in violent crime in areas frequented by U.S. citizens. Bystanders have been injured or killed in shooting incidents."
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