Another Crime-Free Week in Querétaro!

As if part of a massive conspiracy to undermine all the recent "come to Querétaro, the safest place on earth" hype, the last two weeks have seen five spectacular deaths in the state. First, two people spontaneously combusted while sleeping in the trunks of their cars, and then, on Tuesday, three people accidentally shot themselves in the back of the head while blindfolded.

The Querétaro government immediately sprang into action, with Gov. Calzada holding a press conference to remind everyone that "We Are A Safe State." So there.

Actually, both incidents happened in almost exactly the same place, on the outskirts of Amealco de Bonfil, which happens to be the poorest, most depressed, most illiterate, most Indigenous town in the entire state, as well as the most alcoholic place in all of Mexico. Amazingly, it seems there is also crime there. It's a place that is, at best, extremely marginal, and it's been kind of amusing watching the commentariat marginalize these incidents even further. The two charred bodies turned out to be from Edomex, not Querétaro! And while the three people who got shot were in fact from Amealco, it's likely (though reports vary) that they were actually found a few meters over on the other side of the Querétaro-Michoacán border! So, really, they count against Michoacán! So, to review, that's:

Total number of people murdered: 5.

Total number of queretanos murdered in Querétaro: 0!

Gotta hand it to this Calzada guy: he delivers.

Of course, everyone's looking for the narco angle, and so far no one seems to have found one (only one of the five had any criminal record, and that was for car theft). But probably the strangest twist was the way our local paper Plaza de Armas, published the same photo (or almost the same - slightly different angles, but taken by the same photographer within seconds of each other) of the crime scene on consecutive days, Wednesday and Thursday. In Wednesday's photo, there's an indistinct, smudged piece of paper on the wall behind the victims.

In Thursday's picture, it's a clearly visible narcomanta, which reads, according to the paper, "Lic. Zamarripa [Atty. Gen of Guanjuato], we're keeping our promise, and hope you'll continue to keep yours. Signed, Mencho."

Note to investigators: We think Mencho did it. We don't have much of an opinion on the meaning or significance of that, but it seems a rather large clue, and a strange one for the newspaper to deliberately airbrush out of their photo without an explanation to their readers.