Sonora, Arizona’s neighbor to the south, has already surpassed last year’s grisly murder record.
Through the end of November, there were 1,436 murder victims, the seventh-highest figure nationwide and a nearly 6% jump over the previous year’s total of 1,356, according to recently released federal dataanalyzed by KJZZ.
Several Sonoran cities saw significant year-to-year growth in murder, but northwestern Caborca saw violence explode: with a month of data remaining, the 117 murder cases logged so far exceeds the previous five years combined.
State and federal authorities often point to conflicts between criminal groups to explain the violence. But Manuel Hoyos, head of the Observatorio Sonora por la Seguridad, said that to address it, authorities need to “reinforce intelligence work, investigative work, in order to bring impunity down.”
