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CULIACAN, Sinaloa - Gunmen opened fire on a group of volleyball players in the drug violence-plagued state of Sinaloa on Friday night, killing eight people and wounding at least seven, authorities said.

Sinaloa state police chief Francisco Cordova said some of those killed were playing volleyball while others were watching. The volleyball court is in a working-class neighborhood of Culiacan, the state capital.

Soldiers, federal police and local officers were deployed to the crime scene, Cordova said. He did not provide any more details.

It was not immediately clear whether the shooting was drug related, but Sinaloa is the home state of Joaquin Guzman's powerful drug cartel. It has been the scene of bloody battles between the gang and its rivals.

Meanwhile, groups of heavily armed men fired hundreds of shots at each other in the streets of the border city of Ciudad Juarez, leaving at least six combatants dead.

Chihuahua state prosecutors spokesman Arturo Sandoval said Friday that the shooting took place in a rough part of the city on Thursday. He said investigators recovered 442 spent bullets from the scene.

Officials have not said who was involved, but the Sinaloa and Juarez drug cartels have been battling since 2008 over control of the city across the border from El Paso, Texas.

On Friday, Mexican federal police said they detained the second of three alleged leaders of a drug gang locked in a fierce battle for control of the Pacific resort city of Acapulco.

Victor Manuel Rivera was captured Friday in Mexico State, federal police anti-drug chief Ramon Pequeno said.

Authorities say Rivera's "street sweeper" gang has been fighting the local Independent Cartel of Acapulco for control of the port city since the 2010 arrest of suspected drug capo Edgar Valdez Villareal, a Texas-born man known as "La Barbie."

The two gangs splintered away from Valdez's organization because they didn't like the new leadership. Bloodshed in Acapulco, including mutilations and decapitations, surged following the break-up.

Federal police officers captured another alleged leader of the "street sweeper" last month.

8 killed in shooting at Mexican volleyball game - Â*News - MSN CA