Free Republic

MEXICO CITY - President Vicente Fox's government has arrested more drug lords than any of his predecessors. Yet for all the dramatic captures, drug-trafficking murder and mayhem seem out of control along the Texas border and in southern cities like Acapulco, where gangs are fighting to control turf. The U.S. and Mexico are also skirmishing, with words, over who is to blame. A key reason for the Fox government's apparent reversal of fortune: Mexico's police, prisons and courts are still extremely weak institutions and are so corrupted or intimidated by drug gangs that criminals continue to do business behind bars....

It is this reporter's opinion that while the nation focuses on terrorism, we have all but overlooked the issue of gang violence. Over the past fifty years in Los Angeles we have covered many of the homegrown gangs: the White Fence gang, Boyle Heights gang, the Bloods and the Crips, and others. These were child's play compared with America's most dangerous gang: the Mara Salvatrucha 13 street gang (MS-13). The gang was organized in Los Angeles in the late '80s and was named for La Mara, a street in San Salvador. Its primary purpose was to defend Salvadoran immigrants from...

LAS CRUCES, N.M. (AP) - A man from Honduras has been indicted in the slaying of a Las Cruces woman early this month. Ermino Oliva, 33, was indicted Thursday in the Aug. 4 stabbing and beating death of Gail Williams, 53. He’s charged with willful and deliberate murder and tampering with evidence. He is to be arraigned Aug. 29. Bond was set at $950,000. But Oliva would not be released even if he posts bond. Authorities say he’s in the United States illegally, and would be held for the border patrol if he made bond. Williams’ naked body was found...