Thread: Violence in Mexico Hits Grisly Level

Violence in Mexico Hits Grisly Level
Last Edited: Thursday, 12 Mar 2009, 9:13 AM CDT
Created On: Thursday, 12 Mar 2009, 8:55 AM CDT

AUSTIN (My FOX Austin) - Spring Break is upon us and despite news out of Mexico of violent drug wars, many travelers are still planning on heading to Mexico's tourist destinations. A travel warning has been issued and the details of violence coming out of the area are disturbing.FOX 7's Nik Ciccone talks to the Mexican Consul General Rosalba Ojeda about how worried travelers should really be.

Read more on how UT students are preparing for their Mexico trips.

On Monday in the state of Guerrero, where Acapulco is, a police chief and police commander are among six people killed in a series of attacks. Also Monday, near Guadalajara, five human heads were found inside coolers along a highway.

The bodies are nowhere to be found. In the border city Tijuana, Mexican authorities say an American man was among three decapitated victims.

Read Nik Ciccone's blog on violence in Monterrey.

In February in Cancun, a retired army general was tortured and killed. Federal prosecutors say the city's police chief and most of his 1,700 police officers had been working for a major gang called the "zetas."

These murders are just the beginning in 2008, 6,290 people were killed in drug violence, double what it was in 2007.

In January and February this year-- more than 1,000 murders. According to various reports, the attacks are becoming more gruesome, drug cartels sometimes using torture tactics learned from contacts in the Middle East. They've also decapitated victims and dissolved the bodies in some sort of liquid.

Still, a lot of young people and families here are traveling to Mexico for spring break.

The US state department has not banned travel or issued a warning, but did issue a travel alert for Mexico.

The communications director for the Mexican Consulate in Washington DC says he doesn’t want to ignore or downplay the violence but he compared it to Washington DC, saying certain neighborhoods have very high violent crime rates yet tourists and foreign dignitaries go there every day.

By the way, the US military plans to share some of its anti-terrorism tactics with the Mexican military and President Obama is looking for more ways the U.S. can help.

Read more about the congressional hearings on Mexican violence.

http://www.myfoxaustin.com/dpp/news/031 ... isly_Level

This is an interesting article. Notice the one young man on a Texas campus said it did not bother him since he has not heard much news about the vioence going on down there.

I have had fellow workers just tell me they just started to hear about the violence on the news. Seems we need to get more info out there before people run off to Cancun this year.

In February in Cancun, a retired army general was tortured and killed

I take this as an American retired general?

Even my passport from when I was 3-years old banned me visiting Cuba and Korea. Why is that State Department so namby-pamby about issuing a serious warning about travelling to Mexico throughout every university and college in the US? Do we care more about the Mexican reputation and their tourism dollars or the lives of American citizens?