Covering "Gringo-Style" Shootings in Mexico
What American gun violence looks like to reporters who have to deal with a very different kind of threat
ARTICLE BY
Javier Garza Ramos
JAVIER GARZA RAMOS
@jagarzaramos
March for Our Lives advocates gather and listen to speeches next to Pharr City Hall, June 11, 2022, in Pharr, Texas. In Mexico, where gun violence outside of organized crime is rare, some have referred to school shootings such as those in the U.S. as "gringo style"
When gunshots were reported to the emergency number of the city of Torreón, in northern Mexico, on the morning of January 10, 2020, Pedro López, the spokesman for the state’s attorney general frantically called investigators for details. The call had come from a school, but it was not clear if the shots were fired inside or out.
Years before, the city of Torreón and the metropolitan area known as La Laguna, had been one of the most violent regions in Mexico, racking up more than 1,100 homicides in 2012 in a city of under one million people. A turf war between drug cartels had multiplied the murder rate by more than 10 times in just a few years.
So, when reports of shots fired rang in López’s office, instinct led him to think first about a criminal group shooting or killing someone in the street. That was the violence the city had grown used to, and even if homicides had dropped sharply in the years before, an event like that occasionally showed up.
López reached an investigator at the scene who quickly dispelled any theories about the traditional cartel-related violence with a precise quote: “It was gringo style.”
More:
https://niemanreports.org/articles/mexico-mass-shootings/
