Escalation in Mexican Drug War Killings
COLLINS: The U.S. government says Mexican drug distribution has reached 230 cities and towns, and not all of them are near the U.S. border. The recent crackdown in Mexico has led to an escalation in violence, catching civilians in the crossfire. CNN's Michael Ware takes a closer look from just across the U.S./Mexico border in Juarez.</s>MICHAEL WARE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is how American Jose Molinar knew his wife was dead. He saw these television pictures of her bullet-riddled car broadcast from just across the boarder in Juarez City, Mexico, minutes from his Texas home.</s>JOSE MOLINAR, WIFE MURDERED: As soon as the image came up, I saw her truck, and I knew what had happened right then and there.</s>WARE: His wife, Marcella, a U.S. resident and mother of two, was gunned down, doing a last-minute favor, giving a Juarez government lawyer a ride to go shopping.</s>MOLINAR: Wrong place, wrong time. That's the only way I can describe that.</s>WARE: This is the cartel war in Mexico, a conflict raging on America's doorstep, a conflict in which Juarez police officers like this one, under attack from a drug gang, are fighting for their lives, while the drug cartels are battling throughout the city for control of a lucrative drug route into the United States. Sixteen hundred people killed in this city last year. That's three times more than the most murderous city in America, and 50 of them were police officers. This year, in just two months, 400 more already murdered. We saw the most recent victims laying in the city's morgue, overflowing with bodies, many unidentified cartel members destined for mass graves. They'd been brutally killed by rivals: beheaded, tortured, strafed with bullets. But now the cartels are renewing a favorite tactic: intimidating government leaders. This time they're doing it by killing cops one by one.</s>MAYOR JOSE REYES FERRIZ, CIUDAD JUAREZ, MEXICO: They started killing police officers, and not while they were doing police work but when they were coming out of their homes and getting into the cars to go to the police station.</s>WARE: We rode on patrol with police officers out on the streets, the entire force on high alert, the cartel war grinding on. (on camera): And it's going to be a long war with most of the advantages in the cartels' favor. Their gunmen outnumber these police, and they're better armed. And the body count continues to rise. (voice-over): Meanwhile, over the past year, the Mexican army has moved into Juarez. Over 2,000 soldiers sent as part of a huge operation that has 45,000 troops combating the cartels across Mexico. And though the U.S. this year is giving Mexico about $400 million to combat the cartels, officials on both sides of the border privately agree. The war, as it's fought, now cannot be won, which is something Jose Molinar's wife probably knew before she was gunned down. (on camera): This drug war in Juarez robbed you of your mother. I mean, how do you carry that?</s>ALBA PRIETO, MOTHER MURDERED: Day by day, just I always think she's at work.</s>WARE (voice-over): And the unwinnable war that killed her mother rages on.</s>COLLINS: The rise in drug violence in Mexico has led to a travel alert now from the State Department. It is telling travelers to be more careful as they head to the country.