Over 400 people participated in a "cacerolazo" in the Angel of Independence, as a form of solidarity with the victims in the bombing of the Casino Royale in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon. Aug. 27, 2011. Creative Commons.
May 2017. A family of four is driving a Ford Ranger truck on the Mexico City-Puebla highway. They make a casual stop by the side of the road, which turns out to be a terrible mistake. Two vehicles stop behind them. A gang of eight robbers challenge the truck at gunpoint. The father hesitates and a shot is fired, killing the family’s two-year-old son. The bandits then proceed to rape the mother and the teenage daughter and take the truck. The family is forced to march along the road for miles, at night, carrying the body of their dead son, until they find help.
It takes quite a bit to shock the Mexican media when it comes to violent crime. While the foreign media is mainly concerned with relations between Trump and Mexico, local newspapers are full of these kinds of stories of senseless violence. This story, however, hit a nerve: police forces and intelligence services were deployed to find the gang. In less than a month, their leader was arrested –a huge success in a country where over 98% of homicides remain unsolved.
