Early Sunday morning, Jonathan “Yoni” Pizer was driving to a whale-watching excursion in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, enjoying his vacation from the Chicago winter in a place he's visited for decades. Pizer, his husband and two friends were driving when a vehicle in front of them made an abrupt U-tu rn, he said. They saw a truck parked in the intersection and a man with a gun running toward them.The man pointed his gun through the car window and yelled at them in Spanish. Pizer and his group got out with the man pointing his gun in Pizer’s face The man then got into the driver’s seat and maneuvered the car to block the street and parked it. Seconds later, the vehicle went up in flames.“Before we knew it, our rental car and the truck were in flames,” Pizer said.Pizer, a former Illinois state representative who now works for U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley, watched as the man got onto a city bus and fired shots in the air, ordering people off the bus. The bus was soon set ablaze, too.In the commotion, Pizer sent frantic texts to friends back at his condo nearby. Jonathan “Yoni” Pizer was on his way to watch whales in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, on Sunday when an armed cartel member seized his car at gunpoint and set it on fire. Pizer texted other members of his party to stay in their condo, “GUYS DON’T LEAVE THE HOUSE!!!! NOT A JOKE.”Provided photo “GUYS DON’T LEAVE THE HOUSE!!!! NOT A JOKE!!!” he texted.“Terrorist attack!” he sent minutes later.“Stay in the house alert security!!!” he texted.What Pizer and his group didn’t know was that the Mexican Army had killed the leader of the New Generation Jalisco Cartel, Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho.” Roads were blocked for hours with burning vehicles, a tactic used by cartels to impede military operations.Pizer and his group were caught in the early hours of mayhem in the streets of Puerto Vallarta. He and a friend got separated from their husbands. A stranger told them to get in his car and drove them to the beach, which remained placid.“People [were] doing yoga and jogging and riding bikes,” Pizer said. “No one knew what had just begun, and I did my best to tell people that there was a terrorist attack going on.”Pizer and his friend walked along the beach back to their condo; their husbands took shelter in an orphanage at a nearby church. They stayed there for eight hours until the violence died down and they could return to the condo.Instability in JaliscoVideos circulating on social media showed smoke over the tourist city of Puerto Vallarta in Jalisco and people sprinting through the airport of the state's capital in panic.A number of American, Canadian, Mexican and international airlines canceled flights.In Guadalajara, which is scheduled to host matches during this summer's soccer World Cup, burning vehicles blocked roads and businesses closed. Burned cars in a Costco parking lot in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco state, Mexico, on Monday. Mexico has deployed 10,000 troops to quell clashes sparked by the killing of the country’s most wanted drug lord.ALFREDO ESTRELLA/Getty The U.S. State Department warned U.S. citizens in Jalisco, Tamaulipas, Michoacan, Guerrero and Nuevo Leon states to take shelter. Jalisco Gov. Pablo Lemus told residents to stay at home, suspended public transportation and said the state was “living through critical hours.”Rumors circulated on social media that violence could continue and utilities could be shut off. But as Pizer and his party waited anxiously, calm prevailed.“The ongoings of terror that we were worried about overnight, none of that came to pass,” Pizer said.Pizer surmised that the goal of the violence was to communicate to the government that the cartel could take a certain level of control.“They really were about sending a message, we believe, to the government that they could turn on and turn off violence at a whim,” Pizer said.He added: “If they had wanted to kill people, we would have been among the first.”Pizer expressed concern about what the news will do for the area’s reputation, as much of Puerto Vallarta is dependent on tourism. “We really want things to return to just the wonderful place that so many people know that it is,” Pizer said. “It really deserves our support and, frankly, going forward, our loyalty.”Disrupted wedding plansIn preparation for their wedding in Guadalajara on Friday, Kaitlin Bucaro and Robbie Morris were sitting at a Chicago coffee shop writing their wedding vows Sunday morning when they heard from a guest who had traveled to Mexico earlier that her flight was rerouted and couldn’t land.The couple read and watched news coming out of Guadalajara and within hours knew they’d have to cancel the 150-guest wedding they had spent a year — and thousands of dollars — planning. They were set to fly to Mexico on Tuesday morning.“This situation that’s happening is not necessarily in these contracts with these vendors,” Bucaro said.“I think very quickly we realized what was going on there was bigger than this wedding and bringing a bunch of people,” she said. “We needed to look out for everybody’s safety, including our own.”The couple is “gutted,” Morris added.They’ve made friends in Guadalajara over several trips there the past few years. On Monday morning, they checked in on one friend, Chuy, who lives there after 30 years in Chicago.“It’s breaking our heart to see everyone there go through this chaotic, violent situation,” Morris said. “And so we’re thinking of everyone there.”Bucaro and Morris are trying to find a new wedding venue in the Chicago area to go ahead with their wedding this Friday.Contributing: Associated Press ...read more read less