Mayra B. was exercising at her usual gym in Celaya, Mexico, when she glanced toward the window and saw a motorcyclist firing shots at a nearby taqueria.
“The man rode past and then came back to film a video like it was nothing. There were kids inside,” said Mayra.
The video of the shooting spread through social media. The video depicts the alleged shooter walking through the chaos as a group of bystanders scramble to get inside their car while the camera lingers on the victims.
“There’s at least one person killed each day here, and it can happen at any time. Cartels aren’t satisfied with only killing rival cartels anymore. They go into bars and restaurants and start shooting at everyone,” Mayra comments.
For decades, cartels have terrorized parts of Mexico, affecting the nation’s citizens through violence and influence. According to Our World in Data, there were over 18,000 deaths related to armed non-government groups in 2021 in Mexico. The data includes both the belligerents and civilians.
Maribel A., a 52-year-old who lived in Tamaulipas at the height of the state’s cartel problem, was in the middle of a shootout between the two warring sides, presumably two different cartels. “I’ve never seen a shootout with my own eyes, but I was in the middle of one. I was parked outside a store with my daughter, and the shooting started. They were on all sides, and all we could do was wait until it stopped.”
In late 2023, six students from the Universidad Latina de Mexico in Celaya were murdered, with the Mexican president at the time, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, saying that the murders were connected to the sale of drugs to seemingly calm people down without sharing any sort of evidence. In the days that followed, there were protests at the university where people yelled that the students were not ‘narcojuniors.’
Mayra, who knew three of the students, said, “They weren’t even involved with any of that. That’s how it is now: People get killed without having to be involved with drugs. My boyfriend’s friend was killed because they thought he was somebody else.”
Estefani Tovar, a 25-year-old secondary school teacher from the outskirts of Celaya, shares similar sentiments when it comes to not having to be involved with drugs to be killed in Mexico. “There is so much fear here. A lot of times, somebody could be going to buy something or go for a walk, but they end up losing their life in the middle of the street. Many of my students have parents who were police officers who died trying to strike against organized crime. It goes to show the reality of organized crime having the real power here.”
According to Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), there was an estimated 40.2 percent of Mexican citizens who didn’t feel safe in their own communities in 2024.
Maribel believes that there are more cartel members than police and that in some cases, “There are a handful of cartels that try to protect people, but there’s still that uncertainty because they can’t stop being violent. That’s why there’s nobody around after six in the afternoon in some places.”
Tovar recalls the painfully horrific things she’s seen, saying, “It’s very common to find ourselves in violent situations despite not wanting to. On one occasion, in high school, I saw somebody on a motorcycle shoot somebody else. I’ve seen body parts where I live.”
“Another time, I saw police trying to arrest two men and a woman, and they resisted. The police had guns on them, so I was scared thinking about the possibility of what could happen. Thankfully, nothing ended up happening,” she continues.
Narcocorridos or drug ballads, a subgenre of Regional Mexican music that tells stories about drug traffickers, have been under fire in Mexico for years for their supposed glorification of the lifestyle that comes with being involved with drug cartels, claiming the songs advocate for cartel violence. About a third of Mexican states have banned narcocorridos. Although President Claudia Sheinbaum does not like the content of narcocorridos, she has said she is not in favor of prohibiting them.
Tovar is not a fan of narcocorridos and thinks, “Narcoculture in general affects people so much. Adolescents look at the narco life and they imagine how it would look for them. The violence has influenced their way of thinking, and the new generations think this is all normal. They become desensitized because they grow up with all of this, and they forget to be empathetic.”
Maribel thinks the appeal of drug trafficking is easy money. “Today, young people want easy money, so instead of working, they join the drug trafficking business.”
INEGI reports that the leading cause of death for 25-44 year olds in Mexico in 2023 was homicides. The second highest cause of death for 15-24 year olds was homicides as well. Comparing it to the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report homicides as the third highest leading cause of death for 15-34 year olds and the sixth highest for 35-44 year olds in 2023.
Tovar shares somewhat similar sentiments to what Maribel said about the appeal of drug trafficking, but elaborates more, “A lot of kids are vulnerable and they want money and they want the opportunity to have things. Cartels hook them in with money, family, and a place they feel they can fit in. It’s very complicated, and in reality, criminal organizations just use them like meat.”
There have been many strategies talked about in trying to mitigate the influence and effects that drug cartels have, with many of them involving the U.S. Vicente Fox, former president of Mexico from 2000 to 2006, has stated in the past that he thinks decriminalizing drugs in the U.S. would weaken cartels, citing Portugal as an example of how the decriminalization of drugs has decreased drug consumption in an interview with PBS.
There is also the issue of the “iron river,” which is the illegal smuggling of firearms from the U.S. to Mexico. According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), about 65.5 percent of firearms recovered in Mexico in 2022 were traced back to the U.S. In February, Illinois Senator Richard Durbin and Texas Representative Joaquin Castro introduced the Stop Arming Cartels Act to try to limit firearms trafficking from the U.S. to Mexico. The bill was also introduced in 2023 and 2024, but never made it past the introduction.
Tovar does believe that decriminalizing drugs and halting the iron river would certainly help in mitigating the power of cartels, but she thinks the most important part is working with new generations to mitigate the violence and drug use. “We need to educate students and families. I think a lot of things tied to cartels are psychological, so there should be some sort of mandatory psychologist appointments for parents and students. There should also be work done in the U.S. with families to limit the consumption of drugs.”
Earlier this year, President Donald Trump signed an executive order designating certain cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists. Six of the eight cartels that were labeled as terrorist organizations are based in Mexico. Whether the designation will have a positive change when it comes to keeping citizens of the U.S. and Mexico safe will remain to be seen within the next few years.