Yes, yet another post about the danger from Mexico.
Following my last post on this subject, I had a couple of e-mails alleging that I was ‘obsessing’ about the danger posed by Mexican drug cartels and criminal gangs. The writers complained that I was exaggerating the risk, and claimed that things weren’t nearly that bad in reality.
Oh, yeah?
This article appeared in the Houston Chronicle yesterday. An excerpt:
The order was clear: Kill the guy in the Astros jersey.
But in a case of mistaken identity, Jose Perez ended up dead. The intended target — the Houston-based head of a Mexican drug cartel cell pumping millions of dollars of cocaine into the city — walked away.
Perez, 27, was just a working guy, out getting dinner late on a Friday with his wife and young children at Chilos, a seafood restaurant on the Gulf Freeway.
His murder and the assassination gone awry point to the perilous presence of Mexican organized crime and how cartel violence has seeped into the city.
Arrests came in December when police and federal agents got a break in the 2006 shooting as they charted the relationship and rivalries between at least five cartel cells operating in Houston. A rogue’s gallery of about 100 names and mug shots taken at Texas jails and morgues offers a blueprint for Mexican organized crime.
Houston has long been a major staging ground for importing illegal drugs from Mexico and shipping them to the rest of the United States, but a recent Department of Justice report notes it is one of 230 cities where cartels maintain distribution networks and supply lines.
. . .
“It is here and it has been here, but people don’t want to listen,” Rick Moreno, a Houston police homicide investigator working with the Drug Enforcement Administration and FBI, said of the cartels’ presence in Houston. “It is so far-reaching.”
I highly recommend that you read the whole article. It’s pretty sobering stuff. If, after reading it, some readers still believe that the danger is minimal . . . well, I can only suggest psychiatric intervention to address their delusions of safety. They’ll need it.
Peter
Peter, I think the danger is real, and I do not think you are obsessing. I hope you did not misunderstand my earlier comment to one of your Mexico entries. I think the danger is coming from two sides. From Mexico right now, and in not very long from the federal governments. Perhaps it’ll go like this:
“Look, citizens, Mexican drug cartels are invading and harming you.”
“Yeah, We’ve been telling you! About time you noticed. What’s the plan?”
“Well, I’m from the government, and I’m here to help. Effective immediately, there will be random checkpoints in the interior roads of all border states. Now we’ll be able to catch the invaders. Have a nice day.”
Having implemented a non-solution to the problem, citizens will continue to be victims of crime, twice: Once from the Mexican criminals, and once from the government. Will it be a crisis too good to waste?