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New Year’s Shooting Could Bring Harsher Sanction In Sonora

Sustained automatic gunfire is an unwelcome and potentially deadly part of the New Year’s celebration on the border in Nogales.

“To witness it is to be in a war zone, basically,” said Nogales, Arizona, Police Chief Roy Bermudez. “You can hear gunfire constantly going off.”

Bermudez said his department gets calls every year of reports of vehicles and homes damaged by stray rounds. He could not recall a recent injury, but his department recommends that residents stay inside once the shooting starts.

This New Year’s, gun-toting revelers on the Mexican side of Nogales could face prison time and steep fines for popping off rounds, thanks to a new state law in Sonora. It was passed after a young girl was partially blinded by a gunshot in the border city of Agua Prieta last New Year’s.

Bermudez hopes there’s less shooting as a result this year.

Nogales New Year's Gunfire 

( Nogales International)

Murphy Woodhouse was a senior field correspondent at KJZZ from 2018 to 2023.