Cancún shooting: five people gunned down in Mexico's tourist hotspot

theguardian.com ^ | 2/17/2019 | unknown

[rktman]

Five people have been shot dead and five more wounded in Cancún after gunmen burst into a bar in the Mexican resort city and opened fire.

Quintana Roo state prosecutors said the attack on Saturday took place in a club called La Kuka, on a main avenue in central Cancún about 6km (4 miles) away from the Caribbean resort city’s seaside tourist hotel zone, situated on the Yucatán Peninsula.

Prosecutors said four men carrying a long gun and three handguns entered and began shooting. Two of the injured were in critical condition.

Violence has been rising in Cancún and the state of Quintana Roo as a whole amid reports of the Jalisco New Generation cartel moving into the area and fighting local gangs for control.

Last month federal authorities reported that 774 people had been killed in the state last year, more than double the 359 killings recorded in 2017.

[Doogle]

...especially the outskirts...

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Anyone who heads to Mexico for a vacation these days just ain’t right in the head.

[jalisco555]

People that go to Mexico for a vacation are crazy!

I travel to Mexico at least once a year (my wife is Mexican) and not just to tourist Mexico but real Mexico as well. Nothing has gone amiss so far. You need to be careful and exercise good judgment but avoiding the country is an over-reaction. And I'm not alone in feeling this way as anyone who has flown into Puerto Vallarta airport can attest.

[RainMan]

Actually, cruise ships don't go to Cancun. It is not a "Port" per se (water depth around Cancun is often less than 10 feet, and significant Coral growth, in fact the Mesoamerican Coral Reef is the second longest Coral Reef in the world.) Cruise ships stop at Cozumel, an island where the Ferry is about 70 miles South, or Progreso, a port on the northern tip of the Yucutan near Merida, which is 215 miles away.

Cancun is a free-standing tourist destination, and the airport that serves the entire Riviera Maya region. The Riviera Maya is a strip approximately 100 miles long (from Isla Mujeres in the north to Tulum in the south, including the cities of Cancun and Playa del Carmen) where virtually 100% of beachfront consists of Resorts.

The stats given in the article are for the whole of the state of Quintana Roo, which has a permanent population of 1.75M people. Most of the gun violence in QRoo is in the residential areas, not the tourist areas. As the article also said, the bar was 4 miles from the Hotel Zone, which essentially means the beach. Tourists do not stay inland anywhere in QRoo.

Finally, the violence in Cancun or Playa that you hear about, actually is the fault of the US. The violence in the entire state of QRoo was at a lower rate than Disneyland up until a few years ago, then El Chapo was arrested. Once he was arrested, gang wars broke out as different groups sought to fill the void. The violence in Cancun or Playa is actually almost exclusively gang on gang violence.

[frog in a pot]

Trump is like Churchill. He is spitting into the wind.

Quite true, but only if by that you mean Churchill ignored the timid politicians who strove to not offend the Germans but rather accommodate them and reach an accord.

By spitting into such a "wind" he gave England the resolve to survive as a nation. But you must know that - unless, of course, you attended high school within just the past few decades.

[RainMan]

Not quite. First, only 1 bomb went off. They found the second before it went off. Second, the bombs were created and planted by a rival ferry company to try to drive the victim out of business.

[morphing libertarian]

Thanx. Their attempt to drive business off is working.

[US_MilitaryRules]

Yikes! My buddy and his family just went there yesterday!

[I-ambush]

I would say Trump is standing athwart the tide that is tearing apart Western Civilization. Heroic, but probably futile.

[rktman]

Talk to Jimmy Buffett:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXS632uwvQk

;-)

[JimRed]

The violence in Cancun or Playa is actually almost exclusively gang on gang violence.

So, like Muslims killing Muslims, that's a good thing?

[sparklite2]

I love that name, Quintana Roo. Should have gone to Cancun when I planned in 1985. It wasn’t so deadly then.

[hanamizu]

“then El Chapo was arrested. Once he was arrested, gang wars broke out...”

---

I have read that the breaking of the cartels has vastly increased violence in Mexico. The old guys, violent as they were (who no doubt had a piece of the tourist industry) made sure that tourist areas were safe. The new gangs who stepped into the vacuum had/have no such qualms. They are even more violent and have extended the violence into areas that were once considered safe. Acapulco is one former tourist area that has been ruined.

[Texas resident]

The Mexican government lost all control of their northern states a while ago to the cartels, but as long as they stayed on the border, Mexico City didn’t really care.

Just a few years ago, they cartels started killings farther south in their country. Mexico has a huge problem in that the cartels are working to run the whole country.

And our liberal friends say that we don’t need a wall.

[dfwgator]

We’re not only going to need a wall, we are going to have to occupy Mexico, it’s going to happen sooner or later.