AFP via Getty Images
TOPSHOT – View of new common graves -needed due to the increase in the number of murders in the past months- at a cemetery in Tijuana, Baja California State, Mexico, on November 22, 2019. – AFP has mobilized several of its photographers in Mexico around a project entitled Twenty-four hours in Mexico in the shadow of violence to capture, from Thursday, November 21 at midnight to Friday, November 22, scenes of ordinary violence. Since December 2006, after the beginning of the federal anti-cartel offensive, there have been more than 250,000 murders reported in Mexico. (Photo by Guillermo Arias / AFP) (Photo by GUILLERMO ARIAS/AFP via Getty Images) 
Re “Don’t paint Baja California with such a broad brush” (May 17): The letter writer’s use of raw numbers of murders in the U.S. (21,156 in 2023) in an attempt to minimize the horrific state of crime in Mexico is at best misleading. A more informative statistic that takes into the population differences between the two countries is the per capita rate of homicides. For 2023, that is approximately 6.2 per 100,000 residents in the U.S. and 23.1 per 100,000 residents in Mexico. In other words, murders occurred in Mexico at close to four times the rate in the U.S.!
— Bruce Osachy, Mira Mesa
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