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Spokane woman among injured victims of nightclub shooting in Mexico

Candles sit atop banners proclaiming in Spanish “Peace in Playa,” “No more pistols,” and “Enough already of so much corruption and impunity,” outside the Blue Parrot club, where several people were killed in early morning gunfire, in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, Monday, Jan. 16, 2017. Deadly gunfire broke out in the crowded beachfront nightclub throbbing with electronic music before dawn on Monday, setting off a bloody stampede by screaming concertgoers at an international festival in this Caribbean resort. (Rebecca Blackwell / AP)
From staff ,wire reports

A Spokane woman is among those injured during Monday’s nightclub shooting in Playa del Carmen, Mexico.

Five people were killed and 15 injured, including 29-year-old Heather Parham, a former Lewis and Clark High School student, according to her family members who spoke to local media. She was shot in the upper thigh and is expected to recover.

Gunfire broke out before dawn Monday at the Blue Parrot club after security personnel tried to stop a man from entering with a gun.

Mexican authorities said the dead included one American, one Canadian, two Mexicans and one Italian. Three were identified as members of the security detail for the 10-day BPM electronic music festival.

At least one person was killed in a stampede of screaming concertgoers trying to escape the building.

Authorities said eight of the injured, including Parham and another U.S. citizen, were treated at local hospitals and released.

The gunman reportedly escaped, and his motives are yet to be determined. Quintana Roo state, where Playa del Carmen is located, has been plagued by corruption and violence in recent years with the encroachment of the Zetas drug cartel.

The state attorney general, Miguel Angel Pech, told the New York Times on Tuesday that the gunman fired directly at a Mexican citizen inside the club, prompting a confused shootout in which a wounded security guard’s pistol went off as he fell to the ground.