Five articles on page A3 of a daily newspaper began as follows:
• The special investigations unit has been called in after a man was shot and a second man broke his jaw during an arrest...
• A woman described as armed and dangerous is wanted by police in a home invasion robbery...
• A man barricaded himself inside a house for almost an hour after attacking another man...
• A man tried to lure a 14-year-old into his truck...
• A young man is clinging to life after being shot in the head at a west-end community centre...
From June through December, 2006, and in fact well into 2007, foreign governments issued initially travel advisories, then outright advice against traveling to Oaxaca because of purported rampant violence and safety concerns, and again more recently warnings about civil unrest and violence in this southern Mexico city of about 400,000, a mecca for tourists. New York, Chicago, L.A. and Toronto remained immune from such government wrath...oddly so given that while residents in large Canadian and American cities are regularly subjected to street violence, no tourist was targeted or injured during months of Oaxacan unrest.
