February 04, 2010 02:56 PM UTC

January 2010: The Most Violent Month since President Felipe Calderon took office in December '06

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• by: Ray Springfield

January 2010: The Most Violent Month

the deadliest month since Mexican President Felipe Calderon took office in December 2006. The last week of the month was characterized by an abnormally high number of beheadings, 12, which took place throughout the country. The second and third most violent days during Calderon’s term in office also occurred in January 2010, with 52 drug-related deaths on the first day of the month and 46 drug-related deaths on Jan. 29.

Chihuahua has been the most violent state in Mexico for more than two years, and in January 2010 it accounted for more than one-third of all the drug-related deaths during the month with 327, including the deaths of 16 individuals (many of them teenagers) at a high school house party in Ciudad Juarez that was a case of mistaken identity and location. The violence in Juarez stems from the ongoing conflict between the Sinaloa and Juarez cartels over control of the Juarez Valley trafficking route into the United States. The federal government shifted strategies Jan. 13 when it deployed the federal police as the primary force against the cartels in the urban areas of northern Chihuahua state. While the effects of this change will not likely be felt in the short term, authorities hope the federal police, with their higher level of investigative skill, will eventually be able to root out the causes of the violence in that part of Mexico.