How are you feeling after the recent missing student situation?

I read the Borderland Beat blog everyday and have often found it to be a source of false and misleading information. Here's a link to the English-language version of El Universal, a leading mainstream Mexican newspaper.

http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/in-english/

And here's a link to today's lead story about the continuing student protests. From the English-language version of El Universal...

Protests for missing students in Guerrero escalate
http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/in-english/2014/protests-missing-students-95976.html

and i find borderland beat as good or better than any other media in mexico. no need to link to the above informador as that paper is often linked on borderland beat as well as most other mexican news media. i read borderland beat regularly and have for a number of years as well as the now defunct blog del narco.

The mass graves are up to 10, the protest are not dying down they are getting worst.
Anyone comparing this to Colombine does not have a clue.
Colombine was the work of some derange kid this is the government of Iguala going after its citizens . The mayor is gone so is his wife and he head of police.
All the police force was arrested and so was the police force of the next town
Is that what happen in Colorado? Give me a break and wake up.
Now the governor may be kicked out or may not it is political so Pan voted to get him out meanwhile the PRD says there is not need to get him out because there will be an electio in 7 month.
There are marches in many cities in the country as well.

Talking about protest we had 11 000 zapatistas marching in protest a few days ago, that is a whole lot of people on the streets of a small town.

Oregon2LakeChapala wrote:Thank you all for calming me down.  This particular case with so many abducted students, seems to be quite gruesome, but the event happened some distance away from Lakeside in a state known for drug crimes.  Everyone has assured me that Lakeside remains a safe place not involved in such violent crimes.  As anywhere, one must take precaustions and be aware of those around you.  But life goes on, and this mass kidnapping (hopefully not murders) could certainly happen in any part of the US too.  And as a few wise members have said, you most likely wouldn't pack up and leave your home in the US, that had some crimes near your area, but not impacting or involving you.  It reminds me of the Rodney King riots in LA, in about the 1990's  We lived in LA at that time.  The volatile looting and random crimes and fires were quite frightening at the time, but things settled down quickly and life carried on.
 
I hope to integrate in Lakeside with a supportive group that I could call up if I had need.  So I hope to meet many of you, and exchange cell phone numbers, so we ask or offer help if a house was being invaded for robbery, etc.  Is there a neighborhood watch already set up?  Thanks as always!!!
~Mary

I am actually very disturbed about those kidnapped students, I'm not looking forward to the day they find them.

Whoever told you that lakeside is just not a place where such violent crimes happen is probably a real estate agent or has a house to sell. Hideous, violent crimes, (yes, drug crimes) , kidnappings and worse, shoot outs, murders, body dumps, corrupt police cooperating with cartel, government apathy concerning all of the above. All of this has happened here in our recent history and have impacted many of us to various extent, depending on the circumstances. Some people actually did pack up and move after a particularly bad time that most of us remember as the "May Massacre."
Things are peaceful here now, we hope it stays that way. I don't know about Neighborhood Watch but people are nice and will help you if you are in trouble. You will make lots of friends and barricade your house like Fort Knox . Hopefully you will feel safe and life will continue to be peaceful.
Don't pay any attention to those people up north giving you a hard time, we all get that.

Lots to consider here! I definitely am learning a great deal from everyone's thoughts and experiences.
Thank you!!!

[quote="Pedro"] i find borderland beat as good or better than any other media in mexico. /quote]

If you could speak or read Spanish you wouldn't have to rely on that biased online fish wrap to get your information,there are much better news sources in Mexico.
I checked out their article on the Iguala case,when I got to the part where BB's "reporter" wrote of Colosio's assassination in,get this,Ciudad Juarez,I had to laugh at the sheer ignorance of their reporting.

you could cherry pick outta any of the rags and find the same type thing from time to time. i do try to read in spanish and also differ to google translate from time to time. my reading of spanish is better than my ability to speak it. nice to hear that you are perfect.-SNORK!

BB is the one doing the cherry picking,they only reprint articles that support their agenda.
Good luck with google translate....

Ms.Thang wrote: Some people actually did pack up and move after a particularly bad time that most of us remember as the "May Massacre."

Don't pay any attention to those people up north giving you a hard time, we all get that.

Thanks for coming clean on this Ms. Thang - I was worried that people were "sleeping" through the memory of this truly horrific event a little over two years ago. Made worse by the initial supposition that those killed were"probably" drug dealers, it turned out that most of them were innocent young people snatched from the street. 18 killed, many dismembered, a true miracle that another 12 escaped their captivity and sure death. All carried out by a psychopathic led cartel to avenge 35 of their own members killed (drug dealers killing drug dealers).

let us not forget the shootout in front of spencer"s casa[chapala centro] and a mere 300 yards from my place. but again that was between the police and a few deranged sicarios and like the rain here it was at night.

Everyone should post the worse case scenario they have seen or even heard about and teach those real estate agents and would be/wanna be/are, home sellers a lesson.  

slainte39 wrote:Everyone should post the worse case scenario they have seen or even heard about and teach those real estate agents and would be/wanna be/are, home sellers a lesson.  

SNORK!

Let us all get really scared all over again. Let´s be sad and depressed over what has happened and be afraid of what might happen in the future.
If past and possible future cartel violence and police corruption doesn´t do it for you, there is always the Ebola thread.

I suggest not watching news. First I've heard of this. As with all other news, and thus the reason I never watch, I'm left wishing I hadn't heard it in the first place.

You can all rest easy that the mass disappearances in the past few years have not been foreigners. They are finding mass graves but they are from other massacres, also no foreigners.

Warning -- what follows may come under the category "wish I hadn't read that."

We visited Ajijic three times before deciding to move here.

The first time was a few days after the big blockade near the airport when the cartel guys burned cars and buses and, if I remember, shot up a nightclub. It was the first big violence outbreak like that in Guad, I think, so it was quite a shock.

The second time was a day after the expat lawyer got shot in front of his house for resisting a robbery.

The third time we had been hearing about people disappearing, came down anyway, and then while we were here they found the bodies of the kidnapped. And no, it didn't soothe me at all that none of them were expats. We knew people who had lost family members, and in any event, it was every bit as tragic and shocking as the student thing happening now. All those innocents, most of them kids. Horrific.

And of course expats are not immune. Consider the home invasions deaths in the past few months.

I know some people just hate anyone bringing these things up and tainting their view of "paradise," but my ultimate point is, we were here for all those events and decided to move here anyway. And we don't regret it, and on a day to day basis we don't feel threatened. We live near the plaza, not in a gated community, although I can say that our house is secured far more thoroughly than in the States. We walk almost everywhere, even well after dark, and have never had a problem.

So why did we decide to come anyway? Because safety and security are not everything. Our life here is so much richer than it was up north that we feel it makes up for the additional risks. (Some are arguing that there are plenty of risks in cities up north, but statistically, I believe the rate here is higher because the population is small, and even up north, most of the problems happen in particular areas of a city that I would never visit.)

We love the Mexican people and admire the way they keep going against the odds and adversity. We love the culture, the festivals, the vibrancy. Things feel much more alive down here! We also think that most of the expats who move here are more interesting, tolerant, and adventurous than most of the people we knew up north.

We could've stayed up north out of fear and missed all this -- and then been diagnosed with some dread disease anyway. Life is a risk. But you only live once, and at this point in my life, I'd rather do it here.

If it is your time, it is your time, meanwhile relax and enjoy life and take some precautions so that your number wont be up for a bit

Thank you, Sambrit. Very well said and I think you speak for many of us here.

Thank you for putting the recent crime in perspective, regarding your choice to embrace life to it's fullest in the home that gives you great joy!

Very nicely said  Spencer and Sambrit.

I didn't want to frighten Mary I just wanted to give her the real picture because it sounded like someone had mislead her.

We all know that for some reason foreigners are not targets for the cartels, but every now and then someone will feel a little too confident with that and the Belgian guy that was hiking at night and bumped into a group of armed zetas leading kidnap victims down the  trail in Ajijic is a good example of that.

My own family here is a mix of foreigners and Mexicans so that whole idea of "they don't target foreigners" means nothing to me and it means little or nothing to most people who have people of Mexican nationality for other reasons that have already been mentioned.

The other thing that doesn't influence me is the crime that happens in Timbuktu or wherever. I live here, in Chapala, and it's pretty sweet at the moment. There are drugs but the grand poobahs of the dealing world have evidently decided who is in charge of what so we are living in harmony.

It's all good, Mary. Good luck on selling your house.

So Mary, did any of this alter your view of lakeside as a potential home for you or were you already aware that our present situation is much better than our recent history?

slainte39 wrote:Everyone should post the worse case scenario they have seen or even heard about and teach those real estate agents and would be/wanna be/are, home sellers a lesson.  

A house is not a "Home". Eh

Well, if we did that we should also post the best things we have experienced and the good things would outweigh the bad. I don't know why they can't just be honest.

Since probably 1/2 the softer drugs sold in the Lakeside area is to the expats I would think the local cartel guys would hate to scare off their customers anyways......jajaja.

Ms.Thang wrote:Well, if we did that we should also post the best things we have experienced and the good things would outweigh the bad. I don't know why they can't just be honest.

That would be "the great debate", with spin, spin, spin. ....and

With the old local ladies crying about how their neighbourhood used to be, before all the "Improvements".

CanuckBob wrote:Since probably 1/2 the softer drugs sold in the Lakeside area is to the expats I would think the local cartel guys would hate to scare off their customers anyways......jajaja.

But they might start a war over who controls the lucrative plaza at Lakeside,they know you guys pay premium prices....