Mexico City ( Four Gunned Down at Gym in Mexican Capital )

MEXICO CITY – Two suspects were arrested in connection with a shooting at a gym in the Mexican capital that left four people dead, the city’s mayor said Friday.

A pair of brothers and a man accompanying them were pronounced dead at the Body Extreme gym in the downtown Tepito neighborhood, Mexico City Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera said.

The gym owner died later at a hospital of wounds received when he confronted the assailants, according to Milenio Television.

State news agency Notimex said two cars parked near the gym were set on fire at about the same time as the shootings, 9:30 p.m. Thursday.

The cars were torched by the shooters, El Universal newspaper said in its Web edition.

Mancera attributed the violence in Tepito to an “outbreak of some gangs,” ruling out the idea that one of Mexico’s powerful drug cartels has established a presence in the capital.

The fatal shooting at the gym appears to be part of “a direct dispute” among a specific group of people, the mayor told Televisa television.

He said the gym attack, which was witnessed by more than 30 people, does not seem to be connected to the May 26 abduction of 12 Tepito residents from a bar in the capital’s upscale Zona Rosa area.

The municipal government plans to permanently deploy 400 police officers in Tepito as part of a “comprehensive” program for the troubled neighborhood, Mancera said.

The capital has been largely spared the drug-war violence that has claimed more than 70,000 lives in Mexico over the past 6½ years. EFE