Actor slain by would-be blanks

An actor in a low-budget Mexican action movie shot and killed a colleague after apparently being handed a gun with real bullets instead of blanks, authorities said Thursday.

Flavio Peniche, the brother of internationally known soap opera star Arturo Peniche, was arrested on suspicion of manslaughter and then released on nearly $40,000 bail Wednesday, according to the attorney general’s office of Morelos state, just south of Mexico City.

The shooting occurred Saturday during filming of “The Scorpion’s Vengeance” at a hotel in Cuernavaca.

According to a police report faxed to the Associated Press, the scene called for Peniche to shoot six people. After firing what were supposed to be two blanks, he realized that actor Antonio Velasco had been wounded, and the crew ran for help.

Velasco died later at a Cuernavaca hospital.