crandle
Campbell River, BC, Canada
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I just got an update from Cheryl. They are safe and sound in Webers RV Park in SMA. They say they were surrounded by a crowd of people who had read the story here or on my Blog before they could even back into their space.
Yes, they reported the incident to the police. Yes, they did memorize the plate number and passed it on to the police. Yes, there is a big bullet hole in the windshield, a dent on the hood where the bullet hit first and a dent in the bumper where they ran into the VW when it cut them off. They are going to stay in SMA for a few days until they stop shaking and they are going to the USA Embassy there to make a report.
They say to thank everyone for their concern.
* This post was
edited 03/08/12 09:51pm by crandle *
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qtla9111
Monterrey, Mexico
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Croft what time of day did this happen?
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crandle
Campbell River, BC, Canada
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I am not sure Chris but it happened one hour after they left the RV park they were in so I would make a guess that it was before noon.
EDIT: It happened at 9:30 AM
* This post was
edited 03/09/12 01:43pm by crandle *
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Big C
Kelowna, B.C. Canada
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If Croft Crandle says this is true I would believe him....his character is not one to exaggerate. Sad that this has happened but the economy here in Mexico as in North of the border is suffering and so are the people.
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briansue
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Reading these posts about crime in Mexico almost always brings out some comments that seem quite inappropriate on both sides of the story. I post along with others about this often.
Crime happens everywhere – not just in Mexico – if you think you are safer in the US or anywhere else than you might be in Mexico you are not paying attention.
I do not disagree with Croft’s post because I know these things can happen. I know no facts so have nothing to add.
But about some of the other comments.
We see more police and military patrolling Mexican highways than anywhere we have ever been in the US. Saying you are not safe because the police are either not there or that they do nothing is simply not true. There are plenty of good police in Mexico and they are out there doing their jobs every single day. That is a fact we see every day we are here.
I have traveled in Mexico on and off since my first RV trip in 1971. I have had many encounters with Mexican police and not one single one of them was a bad encounter and I have never been asked for modida – nor has mordida even been remotely hinted at. I have had police turn down offers of a tip for assisting us. I am not saying things do not happen – but they have never ever happened to me. Every encounter with the police we have ever had has been very professional and courteous and helpful.
There are certainly a great many things to see in the US and we have traveled all of the US for many years. I was a trucker and have been in all parts of every state in the “lower 48”. We have visited many National Parks and other points of interest all over the US. We still have a long list of places in the US we want to see and with any luck we will get to see many of them. But we find many things in Mexico you will never see in the US and we experience many things in Mexico we will never experience in the US. We have seen 2 of the 3 largest pyramids in the world. We have seen what remains of ancient cultures. We have seen the largest and oldest cathedrals in the western hemisphere. And the list goes on and on as we travel almost every winter all over Mexico. We meet wonderful people and see amazing things. Then we return to the US and continue our travels there. Those who do not have extensive experience in many areas of Mexico cannot possibly have accurate opinions about places they know little about from personal experience.
Below are just a few statistics I post often on this forum for those who continue to think they are safe in the US and that the things reported about Mexico on this forum or in the news or wherever can only happen in Mexico. This forum topic is about a carjacking in Mexico. A carjacking is the forceful taking of a vehicle from its occupants – this is not car theft and it is not highjacking a truck for its contents. In the US there are about 38,000 carjackings per year of which about 45% of the time firearms are used to take the vehicle. Statistics below are from the United States Department of Justice and not some off the wall blog or website – they come directly from the FBI and other law enforcement agencies in the US. Just for the heck of it I also include murder stats in the US from 1950 to 2005 in case anyone thinks you can only get murdered in Mexico.
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/homicide/tables/totalstab.cfm
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=476
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/c02.pdf
I am not trying to excuse any crime that happens in Mexico. I am not trying to say the US is worse than Mexico. I am not trying to argue with anyone. But some of the comments seem to be completely unaware of some facts and I thought perhaps adding some facts into all these opinions might be useful to some readers.
We all know there are many stories of many crimes occurring all over Mexico but particularly and specifically in certain areas. The vast majority of these crimes and murders in Mexico involve something to do with the drug business – most of it is criminal gang members killing members of other criminal gangs. Things like this happening to tourists and/or RVers are very rare and there are no facts or statistics saying otherwise that we have ever heard in over 40 years of travel in Mexico. Bad things can happen anywhere. Bad things can happen anytime. Bad things can happen to anyone. That is reality. Official US Government statistics and cold hard facts clearly indicate these things happen in the US with some frequency. Facts are facts.
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Belgique
Cedar Island NC (Outer Banks)
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Big C wrote:If Croft Crandle says this is true I would believe him....his character is not one to exaggerate. Sad that this has happened but the economy here in Mexico as in North of the border is suffering and so are the people.
What I was going to say about Croft but you beat me to it.
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five'er
Canada
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Wow.. well I guess sadly for them and the rest of us that it really did happen.
As a side note.. MY scepticism was not in that the OP was telling lie OR that his friends were but my thoughts were more along the lines of.. Someone hacked the uses account or stole the laptop with contacts and was setting up a back story to hit up for a money transfer or a simple spam message or something like that with the intention to spread fear or simply a game to see how long it would take to hear the story back again (i.e. Broken telephone).. Again, sadly it would appear to be true...
Not to turn this thread into a discussion about if Mexico is safe or not but seeing as it's out there lets state the obvious... I know a lot of people are claiming that there are crimes that take place all over as in.. "You can get shot in your own back yard...” That may be true for some of the posters (sadly) but in my experience, where I live and places I've travelled in North America I've never been worried about being hijacked or shot at while driving down the road. (Sorry, I take that back.. There are some places or areas on the eastern seaboard when I was a Commercial driver that may qualify as sketchy) HOWEVER.. I'm not about to revisit those places for a good time or take my family there to have a picnic, if I did and ended up shot at, came on here and told you all that I was having a campfire or picnic in some slummy area in some known armpit of NA you’d all tell me I had it coming and/or insult my intelligence as you probably should in that case.. . My point... To each their own but there are a lot of nice and sunny places with cheap beer you COULD vacation but probably shouldn't... It sounds to me like Mexico is becoming one of those places which is a real shame.. The problem with all the statistics that are thrown around is that they mean nothing. Anyone can make any argument with the appropriate set of numbers or manipulatiopn. The Stats on US crime don't mean much compared to crimes against tourists in mexico. Show me a stat on the same type of crime on Canadians in the US vs MExico.. Don't show numbers on how many gangsters were killed in the us and suggest murders happen everywhere..
I heard of another story of a Canadian in a resort in Mexico a couple days ago from a relative however it's a story of a friend (And we know how that goes). The basic idea was a bartender at a resort was in with a Dr. at a hospital. The bartender would put a substace (poison) in the tourists drink resulting in a Dr. visit (pre-aranged) where thousands would be spent on medical bills which the bartender would get a cut of. These stories that were once unbelievable are starting to sound more relistic as time goes on.. My wife wondered if the Calgary woman who recently died due to CO2 poisoning while scuba diving was a victim of a similar scam gone wrong.. Makes you wonder..
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pulsar
Lewisville, NC
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five'er,
You acknowledge there are some areas north of the border that you would not recommend for a "picnic." But then you seem to imply that all of Mexico fits into that category, which couldn't be further from the truth.
As far as the anecdote in your last paragraph, without a verifiable source, I wonder why you would pass it on. Regardless, there are unscrupulous and dangerous scams wherever one finds greedy people.
Tom
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briansue
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five'er,
I am afraid your logic is completely lost on me. I presented stats from the US Gov't that indicate that crime happens in the US as well as everywhere else. You say these stats are about gangsters killing gangsters which I did not get?? And you also state that the stats for crime against tourists in Mexico somehow outweigh crime in the US?? Where did you get your stats about crime against tourists in Mexico? I am aware of no such stats and have been unable to find any. Can you tell us where to find stats specifically about crime in Mexico as it relates to tourists and not include tourists who were in Mexico related to their interests in drugs? I am not trying to argue with you but am coureous as to where your specific information comes from as I am aware of none of it. Crime in the US can occur almost anywhere - people have been robbed and even killed in our National Parks - you do not have to picnic in a slum to become a victim - yet we still visit all of our National Parks as often as we can. So there are high crime areas in Mexico and we avoid those areas. I read somewhere that about 95% of crime happens in less than 3% of the land mass. If we avoid that 3% our chances of survival go up considerably - whether we are in the US or Canada or Mexico or anywhere else in the world. The point I try to make is that people seem to sensationalize crime in Mexico yet completely disregard the fact that these crimes happen all over the US as well. Why are folks so interest in crime in Mexico while they seem to tend to ignore completely that the same crimes happen in the US? Again, the logic completely escapes me.
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briansue
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As many who read this forum on a regular basis know, we see quite a lot of posts that go off on strange tangents about crime in Mexico. There are facts and there is truth. I would like to go off on a bit of a tangent about TRUTH and hope the moderator understands that I know this has nothing to do with Mexico or RVing in Mexico. It is about TRUTH and how the TRUTH can get distorted to amazing degrees. My point here is to try to explain how some information can easily be made to appear to be something other than what it actually is. My quest here is about TRUTH and how it relates to this topic and thread on this forum.
From 1998 to 2006 we owned a house on an island east of Puerto Rico called Vieques. We lived there full time from Christmas 1999 to March 2006. Some readers may be aware that Vieques was a US Navy bombing range from WWII until May 2003. There were protests about this for many years but the protesting got really serious in 1999 after a security guard died under debatable circumstances.
Early in the protests the protesters learned they could say just about anything and the media would report it. The protesters learned that the more outrageous their statements the more the media would eat it up. They began to get worldwide attention. Celebrities and stars and politicians flocked to Vieques to participate and support the protesters. But no one – and I mean no one – ever checked the facts. I DID!
I have years of research and fact finding that disputes almost every claim the protesters ever made.
They said the people had cancer and a very high cancer rate due to Navy contamination – FACT – Vieques had a lower cancer rate than anywhere I could find in the US.
They said the US and the Navy stole the land from the people – FACT – the US kicked Spain out of PR in 1898. Under Spanish law only the land barons appointed by the King could own land in PR – the people owned no land – PEOPLE were NOT allowed to own land under Spanish law. The US spent years and years buying up the land from the land barons paying agreed upon prices. One 10,000 acre “plantation” belonged to a New York City based sugar company. Under PRRA (look it up) the US divided up all the land between 1935 to 1955 and GAVE the land to the people – except of course the land the US needed for military protection of Puerto Rico and the US.
Protest pictures showed unexploded bombs lying on a beach – FACT – over 85% of the bombs dropped on Vieques we dummies containing no explosives so they were very unlikely to explode.
There are at least 54 US military bombing ranges in the US that are closer to civilian populations than the range in Vieques – which was about 10 miles from the nearest residence. Millions of US citizens in the US live closer to bombing ranges than the people of Vieques.
I could probably write a book about the lies that were told about Vieques by the protesters as I certainly have enough factual information to do so. Yet to this day the lies continue (see Wikipedia for more lies).
My POINT here has to do with TRUTH and reports we hear which may or may not be true. I do not doubt anything Croft says for one second. We see his posts and read his blog and know he is a man of great integrity. But much of the rest of what we hear is questionable to say the least. Distortions of facts and rumors and speculation presented as fact are believed to be fact when no such fact actually exists.
What I would truly love to see is those who report that things happen or there are statistics or whatever would please reference a valid and verifiable source where the information you present can be found. FACTS. TRUTH. Anything else is simply of no use to anyone. Today’s so called MEDIA is – or should not – ever be considered as source of facts or TRUTH. All they report is the “he said, she said” nonsense people such as the Vieques protesters tell them – which is a long way from TRUTH.
I fully agree that there is crime in Mexico. There is no denying it. How much of this crime has anything to do with tourists or the ordinary American or Canadian visiting Mexico seems to have varying degrees of extreme opinion in one direction or another. How much of it is based on fact seems to be of little concern to many people. Is there really some increase in the odds you will be the victim of crime in Mexico compared with the odds of becoming a victim anywhere else? Possibly. But in over 40 years of travel all over Mexico I have still not experienced or witnessed any such crime – of any kind – not even being asked to pay mordida. I am not naïve – I know these things happen – just as they happen everywhere else. I post crime stats in the US because it seems that some posters on this forum do not know there is any crime in the US. Yet I have not been a victim of crime in the US either.
I hope the moderators will agree that this post has some reason to be included in this thread.
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