El Paso, ranked the safest city for its size (about 700K) in the U.S., is directly across the Rio Grande from Juarez, Mexico's deadliest city, where there were 3,000 murders in 2010. This is the bridge where pedestrians walk across to Juarez. Someone was shot here two nights ago. (I'm here to give a talk, BTW.)
People park here to walk across the bridge (in background) to Juarez. Many also work in El Paso and live in Juarez. A woman from Juarez told me that the state of terror there (routine execution of families and children; on a single day, 6 kids between 8 and 16 were shot) continues because the Mexican government is in bed with drug gangs and can't or won't intervene in any real way.
The difference between the tourist zone (note slick building in background) and the section proximate to Juarez is striking. A half-mile from this sign, everything is different.
This is a half-mile from that arrow sign on the same street. See what I mean? An interesting thing is that everyone here stands and waits for "walk" signs, even if there's no traffic. I wonder if cops use jaywalking... or maybe it's more innocent than that.
Speaks for itself, baby!
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