The violence rolling across Mexico continues to destroy everything and everyone in its path, threatening the further destabilization of an already besieged society teetering on the brink of anarchy. That wave is crashing on our border as Mexican drug cartel-related incidents increase in the United States.
This month’s murder of a U.S. ICE agent and wounding of another — when their armored Suburban was attacked by assailants on a Mexican highway — is just another example of the drug-related crime that has become commonplace in Mexico. The 83 shell casings found at the scene indicate this was a premeditated hit on U.S. agents trying to help the Mexican government in their losing battle against the cartels.
A quick recap of only a few of the other violent crimes that took place in Mexico just the past weeks:
- In Guadalupe, five youths believed to be drug dealers were murdered execution style. Their bullet-riddled bodies were then picked up from the scene of the crime, placed in a truck, and delivered to the victim’s homes in a final act of gruesome contempt.
- In the city of Juarez, 16 people were murdered in one single day. Five of them were young men traveling in a car who died in a hail of bullets after gunmen forced their vehicle to stop and opened fire. Minutes earlier, a young girl who had accompanied the murdered men had just entered her home after being dropped off, fortunate timing being the only thing that saved her life.
- In Acapulco, gunmen in at least ten trucks went on a terror spree through the city. Their indiscriminate gunfire knocked out power to some areas of the city, while they damaged twenty vehicles by setting them on fire or carjacking them to use as roadblocks. One witness described the melee as a war, with bullets flying everywhere. The early morning attack resulted in nine innocent people murdered, including taxi drivers, and many more wounded. Later in the day, five more victims were added to the death toll when their dismembered bodies were discovered by the police.
- In Veracruz, the dismembered bodies of six unidentified murder victims were thrown outside a surveillance post run by the Mexican Department of Public Safety. The six severed heads and associated body parts were spread about to form a message from the Gulf Cartel.