Kidnapped Mexican police commander found beheaded in Cancun

[rob.mwpropane]

That statement has no basis in reality/fact. Politicians, police, etc. that are not on the take get killed in Mexico “on the reg.”

Why do you think the cops that are in the process of arresting someone down there have their faces covered for the cameras? It’s so that they aren’t identified on camera...to prevent them and/or their families from being killed in retaliation.

See what happens when an official gets into office on an anti-corruption platform. They get offed before they have a chance to sit down at their desk.

Cancun...we’re not talking about a place that’s relatively safe for tourists due to natural societal order (ex. Law enforcement). We’re talking about a place that you don’t become a victim of crime because a criminal organization has put out the word that it’s bad for business.

With all due respect, I was trying to be politically correct because I don't want to tarnish the memory of what may have been a good officer (maybe I worded it wrong), but when you join the police force in Mexico your either help or hindrance to the cartel. Either way you DO have skin in the game. It's a losing battle. Mexico is on par with ~ 30,000 murders this year alone (~500+ will be police). Would you want to be a cop in Mexico? If not, why not? That's not a fight I would fight. The US war on drugs is improbable, Mexico's war on drugs is impossible.

 

[martincohn]

I don't wear anything flashy while out, hide my money in a different place, watch my 6 and always try to be as unoffensive as possible (pretty much the same in Baltimore).

Add a .45 to that list and I'm all set at home. And I'm with ya on those cheap flights!

 

[JackOfDiamonds]

Mexico needs their own Duterte..

Mexico needs a lunatic that sends death squads to the streets to slay thousands with no trail ?

I'll have to respectfully disagree...

 

[Marie13]

OMG, I'm 15 minutes out of Philadelphia, lived in center city for six years, and spend a lot of time (in the wee hours) in New Jersey.

Screw Cancun, I'll continue to dive here where it is relatively safe.

Haha. Agree with you! Plus there’s that warm water thing...

 

[jgttrey]

Let's keep some perspective here.

Yes, there's some pretty horrific stuff that happens in Mexico. There's also some pretty horrific stuff that happens here and many other places. Don't let the horror stories take the place of real data. There's a name for that particular cognitive bias but I can't recall it.

The precise figures change for year to year, but the murder rate in the US Virgin Islands is about twice that of Mexico. Belize, Jamaica, the Bahamas, St. Martin, St. Lucia and St Kitts all have higher murder rates than Mexico according to the most recent UN data.

We have a murder rate here in the U.S. that, while far lower than Mexico (about a fifth) is also about five times what it is in most European countries and horrific mass shootings on a tragically regular basis. New Orleans and Birmingham, Alabama have higher murder rates than Mexico as a whole.

Few of these murders, anywhere, are of tourists.

If you have common sense about your destinations and your conduct while you are there, Mexico remains a beautiful place to visit and I, for one, hope we keep visiting and supporting the folks that are making an honest living.

 

[pauldw]

Let's keep some perspective here.

Good idea. There are some small countries the have murder rates that look high because those are rates per capita, and in a small country it isn't hard for relatively small numbers of murders to cause a high per capita murder rate. Now let's look at real life slaughter in Mexico: Mexico’s Murder Rate Hit Record High in 2018

For many years there has been the wholesale murder of children on soccer fields, students on buses, partiers at discos, and on and on. Not just narcos. The gruesome and routine torture and decapitation of people. Bodies hanging from overpasses. Honest cops and prosecutors nearly guaranteed to have short lifespans. It is hard to find a country anywhere more consistently, massively horrific than Mexico. I agree that there are parts of the country that are pretty safe for gringos. Most ferries to Cozumel don't get bombed. But still.

I figured Mexico was a corrupt, poor, annoying country before going there a few years ago. It took just a few days to realize I could live on the Yucatan coast and love it (although I'm still safer where I live in the US). But I also keep in mind that my son spent two years in a much more dangerous part of the country as a missionary, and during that time I saw a lot of awful things happening in his area through following the narcoblog, law enforcement intel here in the US, and so forth, and I did not enjoy praying every night that if the narcos decided to turn their attention to the young men in the white shirts, that he would be able to bear up until they finished him. It is appalling that people, other people, still have to have those same fears every day.

 

[Marie13]

Let's keep some perspective here.

Yes, there's some pretty horrific stuff that happens in Mexico. There's also some pretty horrific stuff that happens here and many other places. Don't let the horror stories take the place of real data. There's a name for that particular cognitive bias but I can't recall it.

The precise figures change for year to year, but the murder rate in the US Virgin Islands is about twice that of Mexico. Belize, Jamaica, the Bahamas, St. Martin, St. Lucia and St Kitts all have higher murder rates than Mexico according to the most recent UN data.

We have a murder rate here in the U.S. that, while far lower than Mexico (about a fifth) is also about five times what it is in most European countries and horrific mass shootings on a tragically regular basis. New Orleans and Birmingham, Alabama have higher murder rates than Mexico as a whole.

Few of these murders, anywhere, are of tourists.

If you have common sense about your destinations and your conduct while you are there, Mexico remains a beautiful place to visit and I, for one, hope we keep visiting and supporting the folks that are making an honest living.

If you want to play that game...you can’t drink the water in MX. IMO, why the hell would I want to visit a place that is so bad, I couldn’t drink the water? Yeah, I know about Flint, but Flint’s a sh*thole anyway. I will not be giving any money to MX. I deal with MX a boatload for work (international shipping). There’s good reason I’ve always considered MX to be the red-headed stepchild of NAFTA. Dealing with Canada is a piece of cake. MX? I’d rather stick a fork in my eye. Backwards doesn’t begin to describe them.

EDIT: and I’ll not go into AquaLung deciding to save money by moving Fusion production from Canada to MX. Bit them in the arse big time. Apparently a number of suits - including mine and those a number of others I know of - needed the inner core replaced because the seams were done so badly our suits leaked like sieves. Production is now back in Canada, I’m told. Eff MX.

 

[Jcp2]

I would say it’s pretty easy to find countries as bad or worse than Mexico just by looking farther than neighboring countries to the US. El Salvador, Yemen, Syria, Myanmar come to mind quickly. Then we have China, where the government oversees non voluntary organ donation on a large scale.

 

[pauldw]

I would say it’s pretty easy to find countries as bad or worse than Mexico just by looking farther than neighboring countries to the US. El Salvador, Yemen, Syria, Myanmar come to mind quickly. Then we have China, where the government oversees non voluntary organ donation on a large scale.

Yeah, I was thinking more of countries that are not at war, but still allow that level of internal violence. And then there's the appalling fact that it is literally on our border. As far as other places, Central America has improved immensely since the 1980s. China is better than under Mao, although its leadership certainly remains evil and is a near existential threat to the US. At any rate, being good Americans it is incumbent upon us to be most appalled by the violence of others that might touch us somehow, than to worry about the violence we can conveniently ignore. (Yes, that last sentence was sarcasm.)

AND, in response to Marie's question about why anyone would want to live in Mexico, here is Mexico in the winter, and Chicago in the winter:

 

[lowviz]

Backwards doesn’t begin to describe them.

Yeah, I totally get what can happen to a beautiful country when those in power can't enforce the rule of law for the common good. Has chilling implications for the USA. As far as we in the US are concerned, the sleeping giant has awoken, it won't be pretty, but it will reset back to what the incredibly brilliant framers of our constitution put into effect. Bottom line, a bloodless revolution every 8 years. The common people rule without lifting a finger. We are not a democracy but a constitutional republic. Works for me.

In the 60's I used to work in a mushroom farm after my day job. Guilt-free fun money. I reported to a Mexican who may or may not have been papered. We would eat lunch, or whatever you call it at 3:00 AM, together. Most amazing talks. I learned so much about people from him...

People are pretty much the same all around the world. Pull out the stops and the bad ones run rampant.

Edit: Background
Constitutional Republic - Definition, Examples, Cases, Processes