The sound of a country in crisis includes the cries of a woman wailing upon finding husband dead in cab of truck. The United States' southern neighbor is in the throes of a drug war - one that's growing more savage every day as the brutally aggressive Sinaloa Cartel muscles in on territory controlled by the Arellano-Felix, the Juarez and Gulf Cartels for control of lucrative routes for smuggling marijuana, cocaine and amphetamines into the United States - a $14 billion a year illegal trade, Whitaker reports.
The drug traffickers are more reckless and ruthless than ever. A group of terrified school children were caught in the crossfire of a three-hour shootout on the streets of Tijuana. In Juarez, a crime reporter was shot to death, the fifth Mexican journalist silenced this year.
Bill Gore has witnessed the carnage, first as the FBI Special Agent in Charge in San Diego, now as the county's undersheriff. He says American drug users should realize they have blood on their hands.
"This is not a victimless crime," Gore said. "That people are dying, literally hundreds of them, on the streets of Tijuana, so they can have their recreational drugs on this side of the border."
The most extreme violence is just south of the border - nowhere worse than Juarez, across the Rio Grande from El Paso. There have been 16 murders in El Paso this year and almost 1,500 drug-related killings in Juarez.
One grisly new tactic is beheadings. A headless corpse hung above a busy highway almost two hours before police covered it with a sheet - the head found in a nearby park.
In Tijuana, nine men were decapitated last month, three of them policemen, their badges stuck in their mouths - some of the 40 murders in Tijuana occurred in just one weekend.
It is a bloody war fueled by a high-powered arsenal of weapons, most smuggled in from the United States.
The gun violence is fueling a boom in the security business. Gabriel Martin turns cars into tanks with armor plating, bullet-proof glass. Of one car he says: "An AR-15 with armor-piercing nose could not get through that."
And there's a long waiting list of people anxious to pay from $30,000 to $90,000 to outfit cars with James Bond-like smoke screens and nails to puncture pursuers' tires.
"As crime rises it seems like the business grows," Martin said. "People are scared to be kidnapped."
The current FBI Agent in Charge in San Diego says gangland kidnappings, common in Mexico as a secondary source of cartel income, are becoming common there.
"The violence is absolutely spilling across into the United States," said FBI agent Keith Slotter said.
About 40 San Diego residents were kidnapped in Mexico this year - double the number three years ago. Many more go unreported.
"Normally, the kidnappers have done, we believe, extensive research ahead of time," Slotter said. "They have a good, a solid background on a person's financial means."
The drug traffickers are more reckless and ruthless than ever. A group of terrified school children were caught in the crossfire of a three-hour shootout on the streets of Tijuana. In Juarez, a crime reporter was shot to death, the fifth Mexican journalist silenced this year.
Bill Gore has witnessed the carnage, first as the FBI Special Agent in Charge in San Diego, now as the county's undersheriff. He says American drug users should realize they have blood on their hands.
"This is not a victimless crime," Gore said. "That people are dying, literally hundreds of them, on the streets of Tijuana, so they can have their recreational drugs on this side of the border."
The most extreme violence is just south of the border - nowhere worse than Juarez, across the Rio Grande from El Paso. There have been 16 murders in El Paso this year and almost 1,500 drug-related killings in Juarez.
One grisly new tactic is beheadings. A headless corpse hung above a busy highway almost two hours before police covered it with a sheet - the head found in a nearby park.
In Tijuana, nine men were decapitated last month, three of them policemen, their badges stuck in their mouths - some of the 40 murders in Tijuana occurred in just one weekend.
It is a bloody war fueled by a high-powered arsenal of weapons, most smuggled in from the United States.
The gun violence is fueling a boom in the security business. Gabriel Martin turns cars into tanks with armor plating, bullet-proof glass. Of one car he says: "An AR-15 with armor-piercing nose could not get through that."
And there's a long waiting list of people anxious to pay from $30,000 to $90,000 to outfit cars with James Bond-like smoke screens and nails to puncture pursuers' tires.
"As crime rises it seems like the business grows," Martin said. "People are scared to be kidnapped."
The current FBI Agent in Charge in San Diego says gangland kidnappings, common in Mexico as a secondary source of cartel income, are becoming common there.
"The violence is absolutely spilling across into the United States," said FBI agent Keith Slotter said.
About 40 San Diego residents were kidnapped in Mexico this year - double the number three years ago. Many more go unreported.
"Normally, the kidnappers have done, we believe, extensive research ahead of time," Slotter said. "They have a good, a solid background on a person's financial means."