11 killed at Mexico bar after ejected patron set it ablaze, officials say

Eleven people were killed early Saturday after a man who had been kicked out of a bar a block from the U.S.-Mexico border set fire to the establishment, prosecutors said.

The blaze, which also injured six people, erupted about 1:30 a.m. Saturday at Beer House in the Mexican town of San Luis Río Colorado, according to prosecutors in Sonora state. The bar appears to be about 250 feet from San Luis, which is in the Yuma area in Arizona’s far southwestern corner.

The seven men and four women killed were locals, and several belonged to a musical group that was playing in the bar, Gustavo Rómulo Salas Chávez, the state attorney general, told reporters. All of the victims were adults, except for a 17-year-old. The injured were being treated at hospitals on both sides of the border.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said it was “looking into” the situation Sunday. And the U.S. State Department said Sunday afternoon it was aware of reports that a U.S. citizen had died in Sonora state on Saturday.

“We are seeking additional information and are on standby to provide all appropriate consular assistance,” a State Department spokesperson said in a emailed statement. “We offer our sincerest condolences to the families of all of the victims.”

San Luis Río Colorado, a city of about 200,000, frequently exchanges visitors with San Luis, Ariz., across the border. The U.S. city is known for its retail, including open-air markets with Mexican souvenirs, while its Mexican counterpart is known for its cultural events and nightclubs.

Security cameras show that the man arrived at Beer House on Saturday, shortly after midnight, and stayed until about 1:20 a.m., when security guards removed him from the premises for behaving disrespectfully to women, Salas Chávez said. Then, the man allegedly backed his pickup to the front of the bar, parked it and walked toward the back of the truck. He took out gasoline and threw it at the door of the bar, Salas Chávez said.

“He then used some instrument, perhaps a blowtorch, he used it as an igniting agent,” Salas Chávez said in Spanish. “That’s when the fire began.”

The statement from prosecutors said the man appeared to be highly intoxicated.

Police said they arrested a suspect Saturday, but they did not identify him. Salas Chávez said the incident did not appear to be related to extortion — a common crime along the U.S.-Mexico border, in which crime gangs force business owners to make payments or risk being killed or having their shops set on fire.

Images shared online by local authorities showed Beer House engulfed in flames as firefighters sought to control the blaze. Photos taken the next morning show the charred remains of the business’s cordoned-off premises, its sign barely legible, and the U.S.-Mexico border wall visible just behind it.

“I join in the grief and deep sorrow that the families and friends of the 11 victims of the fire are going through,” Santos González Yescas, mayor of San Luis Río Colorado, said in a tweet. The governor of Sonora state, Alfonzo Durazo, thanked security forces for their efficiency in finding the suspect.

Dozens of other people have been killed in suspected arson attacks on entertainment establishments in Mexico. In 2019, at least 27 people were killed in the state of Veracruz when assailants allegedly locked the doors of a nightclub and set the building on fire. In August 2011, 52 people died in an arson attack on a casino in the northern Mexican city of Monterrey — an incident police linked to the fearsome Zetas drug-smuggling gang.