Police/Suspect Altercations

Things that make you go hmmm... In one incident in Mexico this week, gunmen attacked a convoy carrying two prisoners. In the aftermath, the two prisoners were turned over to the Mexican Marines. Next thing you know, one of them turns up dead on the side of a road and the other has gone missing. Hmmm.

Mexico's prohibition-related violence took nearly another 300 lives this past week, including three US citizens connected to the US consulate in bloody Ciudad Juárez. That pushes the death toll since President Calderon sent in the army little more than three years ago over the 18,000 mark.

America's war on drugs -- or, more precisely, suspected drug users or sellers -- claimed two more lives late last week, as police conducting drug raids in Memphis and South Florida shot and killed two people in their own homes. In both cases, police said the homeowners were armed.

It's been a hard couple of weeks in Mexico. At least 375 people were killed in prohibition-related violence, including many police officers.

While elected officials on both sides of the board dismiss legalization of the drug trade, Mexico continues to pay the price. Another 137 people were killed in prohibition-related violence there this week.

Heads not attached to bodies keep popping up in unexpected places in Mexico. Yet another gruesome reminder of the prohibition-related savagery wracking the country.

Nearly a thousand people were killed in Mexico's unrelenting plague of prohibition-related violence last month alone. At this rate, another 10,000 will die by year's end.

Kenneth How rolled up to a Massachusetts sobriety checkpoint sitting in the passenger seat and smoking a joint. Shortly later, he was dead. The medical examiner has called his death a homicide. Now, his family has filed a federal lawsuit alleging police beat him to death.

Prohibition-related violence takes no breaks in Mexico. Another 162 people were killed in that country's drug wars in the past week.

The death toll has risen every year since Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared war on the cartels in December 2006. More than 2,000 in 2007, more than 5,000 in 2008, and last year's toll was 7,724. And there are 137 more already this year.