Amid drug war, Mexico less deadly than decade ago
February 8th, 2010 . by TexasFredAmid drug war, Mexico less deadly than decade ago
MEXICO CITY (AP) – Decapitated bodies dumped on the streets, drug-war shootings and regular attacks on police have obscured a significant fact: A falling homicide rate means people in Mexico are less likely to die violently now than they were more than a decade ago.
It also means tourists as well as locals may be safer than many believe.
Mexico City’s homicide rate today is about on par with Los Angeles and is less than a third of that for Washington, D.C.
Yet many Americans are leery of visiting Mexico at all. Drug violence and the swine flu outbreak contributed to a 12.5 percent decline in air travel to Mexico by U.S. citizens in 2009, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce, a blow to Mexico’s third-largest source of foreign income.
Full Story Here:
Amid drug war, Mexico less deadly than decade ago
I never make accusations if I don’t have rock solid proof, so, I am stating this as MY opinion.
This Alexandra Olson, the person that wrote the original story, does she work for the Mexican Tourist Bureau or one of the cartels maybe? When I saw this story on the Houston Chronicle a day or 2 ago, some comments were asking if she was on *crack* and wanting to know what she was smoking! 
This story, 13 Mexican Students Killed After Armed Men Stormed Party and here we have the updated numbers, 15th person dies from Juárez massacre – El Paso Times, these stories paint a different picture from that splattered by Alexandra Olson.
Mexico, Colombia and Haiti are the only countries in the hemisphere subject to a U.S. government advisory warning travelers about violence, even though homicide rates in many Latin American countries are far higher.
But Mexico is the only one that borders this nation. Mexico is the most easily accessible to our citizens. If those citizens haven’t got the good sense to stay OUT of Mexico, and they run into an armed gang and get caught up in a massacre, as long as it happens in Mexico, and NOT on U.S. soil, I have gone past the point of caring WHAT happens to them!
Mexico’s homicide rate has fallen steadily from a high in 1997 of 17 per 100,000 people to 14 per 100,000 in 2009, a year marked by an unprecedented spate of drug slayings concentrated in a few states and cities, Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna said. The national rate hit a low of 10 per 100,000 people in 2007, according to government figures compiled by the independent Citizens’ Institute for Crime Studies.
Apparently, Alexandra Olson isn’t too adept at reading figures either. Mexican homicide rates fell from 17 per 100K in 1997 to 10 per 100K in 2007, then rose to 14 per 100K in 2009. Those figures are not indicative of a safer Mexico, they are indicative of a rise in murders. Maybe that’s why Olson is a writer for AP, she’s too dense to write anything comprehensible.
CULIACAN, Mexico (AP) – Gunmen killed six people at a bar Saturday in the northern state of Sinaloa, a drug-violence hotspot, state prosecutors said.
At least three gunmen walked into Las Herraduras bar in the resort city of Mazatlan early Saturday and opened fire, killing a customer and two waiters, said Martin Gatelum, spokesman for the Sinaloa state prosecutor’s office. 6 killed at bar in cartel-plagued Mexican state
Just a quaint, peaceful little resort and vacation community I suppose.
By comparison, Venezuela, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala have homicide rates of between 40 and 60 per 100,000 people, according to recent government statistics. Colombia was close behind with a rate of 33 in 2008. Brazil’s was 24 in 2006, the last year when national figures were available.
Mexico City’s rate was about 9 per 100,000 in 2008, while Washington, D.C. was more than 30 that year.
