Posted on 12/27/2011 9:35:50 AM PST by Victor
Insight: Violence creeping into Mexican capital By Ioan Grillo | Reuters
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - In a nation wracked by drug violence, this sprawling capital city of more than 20 million has been an oasis of relative peace. But the key to that calm - an informal truce among rival gangs - may be cracking.
On a sunny afternoon this month, a group of gunmen drove into a slum in the north of Mexico City, the streets packed with shoppers and children leaving school. In plain sight, the killers lined three crack cocaine dealers against a wall and shot them in the head with AK-47 assault rifles. They then forced another two men into a black van and drove away past terrified onlookers.
The killings, allegedly carried out by the bloodthirsty La Familia cartel of the central state of Michoacan, were the latest sign that the drug violence raging across large swathes of Mexico is creeping into the capital.
The drug lords have long kept a lid on turf wars in Mexico City. But a generation of upstart gangsters has this year carried out a series of massacres and decapitations on the city edges. Cells of these newer cartels have also become more active in kidnapping and shaking down local businessmen.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
It may have been on FR, but I didn’t see it, but 4 days ago, three American Citizens were shot, two of them Children during a robbery/killing spree on a bus in Vera Cruz, MX. Maria Hartsell, and her two kids from Cleburne, TX, IIRC.
"...Violence creeping into Mexican capital..."
Boy. Just cannot believe that headline!
Addendum to my post;; Shot Dead, not wounded..
What a terrible time to be in Mexico. It’s like Somalia in some places.
‘Mexico City has been a haven of peace’ — after reading this statement, I knew the rest of the article would be hooey. We were in DF 20 years ago, passing through to Merida. I wanted to stop and visit a home where I had lived as a student, and it was a very scary ordeal. NOT safe then, even less so now.
Aftershock Video of Bus Attacks in Vera Cruz..I didn’t look as I think they are graphic. The youtube is on: http://www.borderlandbeat.com/
I have friends from Alabama who moved to the Yucatan Peninsula and are back in the States for Christmas ... to get to the village they live in takes a 4 hour bus ride [or a one hour car drive].
I fear for their lives and the lives of their children.
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Three U.S. citizens were among those killed when gunmen attacked buses in the eastern Mexican state of Veracruz, said a U.S. State Department official said on Saturday.
The three were traveling for the holidays when they and several other passengers on the bus were killed by gunmen on Thursday, according to the U.S. official and local media. The incident was one of several that day in which gunmen attacked busses in the eastern state, a major oil export hub that has lately become a flashpoint for drug gang violence.
On Friday, the tortured bodies of 10 people were found in northern Veracruz, local media reported, as attacks in the region intensify between the Zetas gang and Gulf drug... cartels.
Hoo wooda thunk it?
These AK-47s didn't come nowhere. While they are very plentiful around the world, I'm not sure how easy or difficult it is for Mexicans to get them.
Different story if the guns were handed to them by the US Government.
Absolutely.
Of course you are right. I've spent plenty of time in Mexico City (Day Effe) from more than 20 years ago to the present, and it was always a dangerous place, kind of like NYC was back in the '70s. It's different now, just like the article says, it's a different set of more serious dangers. It is very sad what is happening in Mexico, and it's going to be sad for us when it comes north in the not-too-distant-future.
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