A gruesome discovery south-of-the-border is highlighting a spike in homicides in Tijuana.
The details may be graphic for some.
On Thursday afternoon, authorities found a severed head outside a kindergarten in the Infonavit Lomas Verdes neighborhood.
That murder was one of five homicides reported in a single day in Tijuana, where at least 509 people have been murdered this year.
So far in May, there have been 60 killings, according to the Baja California Attorney General’s office.
That number puts Tijuana on pace to exceed last year’s homicide tally of 910 murders.
For comparison, 201 murders were recorded in San Diego County during a more than two-year period from January 2015 to March, 2017.
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Ev Meade, director of the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego (USD) said homicides have increased steadily in Tijuana since 2015. Many of those homicides are the work of international drug cartels, said Meade.
But he also noted that smaller, fragmented crime groups and gangs are doing the killing, as they fight for control of the domestic drug trade, in and around Tijuana.
“This is something that wasn't true in 2008,2009,” said Meade, who’s an expert in crime, violence and drug trafficking south-of-the-border. “It was all about the international market, all about the border. Now that's changed, and it has changed all over Mexico, but Tijuana is one of the places (domestic drug violence) is really showing up.”
Meade said the areas visited most often by tourists, including the busy downtown streets close to the border, the Rio shopping areas, and the Caliente race track. Those locations are still quite safe, for both tourists and Tijuana residents, he added.
The Baja Attorney General reports that most of the murders are taking place deep in the city, well south of the border, in neighborhoods like Lomas Verdes, tres de Octubre and Sanchez Taboada.
Meade says violent street gangs in those areas practice what he calls “strategic terror”.
“They’re trying to send a message to the population that they will not tolerate any kind of dissent,” Meade explained. “That means if they’re collecting protection money, you pay it.”
Meade said the victims of those murders often include shop owners and professionals, who have nothing to do with drug use or trafficking.
