Amid growing concern about horrific human rights abuses by Mexico's security forces, Amnesty International on Sept. 4 issued a report, aptly entitled "Out of Control," harshly criticizing the Mexican government for its failure to adequately investigate allegations of torture and other "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" at the hands of the military and police. The report finds that such practices are condoned, tolerated or ignored by superior officers, prosecutors, judges and even official human rights bodies. The report calls on Mexico to enforce its own human rights laws—echoing similar demands made by Amnesty last year, urging the Mexican Senate to adopt legislation to protect against rights violations by the military. (Jurist, Sept. 5)

A new massacre is reported from Ciudad Juárez, again raising fears of a return to the wave of deadly gangland violence that convulsed the Mexican border city for much of the past decade. Eight members of a single family—including two four-year-old girls and a six-year-old boy—were killed in their home Nov. 17 in the colonia (neighborhood) of Morelos Zaragoza. The bodies of the children were found on their beds, with multiple stab wounds, as were those of two young women. The two men were on armchairs, handcuffed and gagged. A two-month-old baby, known to have lived in the house, was not found among the dead. The family had been planning an event for their Jehova's Witnesses congregation when the attack took place. (Pulso, IOL, Proceso, Nov. 17)

Seven were killed March 29 when a masked gunman in a bullet-proof vest and black uniform opened fire with an AK-47 in a bar in in the commercial center of Chihuahua City in northern Mexico. Three of the dead were women who worked at the bar, called Mogavi. The city has seen a wave of violence as the Juárez Cartel and Sinaloa Cartel battle for control of the strategic corridor leading to the border town of Ciudad Juárez, immediately up the highway to the north. In a similar incident that night, gunmen opened fire in a bar in Ciudad Altamirano, Guerrero state, killing four civilians and three off-duty federal agents. The previous night, an armed commando raided a nightclub called La Habana in Oaxaca City, in Mexico's south, menacing staff and patrons with AK-47s, shooting up the bar's facade, and abducting one man identified only by his nickname, "El Chiquilín."

Drug-related violent deaths reached 12,394 in Mexico last year, according to a count released by the daily Milenio on Jan. 2. The account said this was an increase of 110 over 2011, but 264 less than in 2010, the most violent year of the Felipe Calderón presidency. (However, by the government's own figures, the total for 2012 was 12,903, and 15,273 for 2010.)  For a fifth consecutive year, Chihuahua was the most violent state in the country, accounting for 18% of total deaths. Yet a Dec. 30 report on El Paso Inc notes the official number of murders in the violence-torn border city of Juárez dropped to about 800, down from a peak of 3,622 in 2010 that won the sobriquet "Murder City." The government of course takes credit, pointing to the jailing of gang leaders and social programs for at-risk youth. A Jan. 11 report on National Public Radio admits that may be part of the explanation, but says "word on the street" is that the long, bloody turf war is winding down because one side won: the interloping Sinaloa Cartel defeated the local and now heavily factionalized Juárez Cartel.