Deadly violence spikes again as cartels clash

By Omar Millán González
2:00 a.m. September 12, 2009

TIJUANA — Authorities are reporting a new wave of violence in Tijuana: 19 homicides in the first eight days of September.

The year is shaping up to be the second-deadliest in the city's history.
The Baja California Attorney General's Office logged 405 homicides between Jan. 1 and Friday. That's less than half of the record-smashing 843 homicides recorded in 2008, but 68 more than in all of 2007.

Two years ago, the federal government declared war on drug cartels, and scores of decapitated, bullet-riddled bodies started showing up in Tijuana and other Mexican cities.

Victor Clark, director of the Binational Center for Human Rights in Tijuana, and JoseÌ