In recent weeks, the drug cartels in Mexico are increasingly killing innocent bystanders in the ongoing battle against each other and state officials.

From the Washington Post:

In the past, cartels have killed their rivals, as well as police and public officials. Occasionally even family members have been slain. Yet in recent weeks, an increasing number of innocent bystanders have been gunned down by suspected drug cartel hit men here in Sinaloa, a cartel stronghold on Mexico’s Pacific coast, as well as in the brutally contested drug corridors along the U.S. border.

In most instances, investigators believe, the victims were merely at the wrong place at the wrong time, gunned down by assassins who were once known for their precision but have now taken to wildly spraying bullets. The effect of the carnage has been widespread terror and a society afraid to demand justice.

“They have us in a panic,” Luciana Arredondo Arredondo, a prosecutor in Guamuchil, said of the cartels in an interview. “They have us terrorized.”