Do you think the Mexican cartel violence is creeping into the US? Haven't there been many murders recently, even far North of the border, that police think are related to drug activity in Mexico?

It's not "creeping", it's here. The drug cartels are extremely large, powerful organizations and their reach expands throughout all of the U.S. and Canada, albeit not nearly as distinctly as in Mexico.



If they don't run it, they have some say in it - or want to have some say in it. Keep in mind these are organizations who are going toe-to-toe with the Mexican federal police and military...and winning.



The death toll along the Mexican border (thankfully, mostly on the South side) is something beyond 60,000 people in five years. That's more civilians/cartel/police dead than soldiers we lost in Vietnam. The violence down there is shockingly bad. Luckily the cartels are just smart enough to go very subdued in the U.S.



In border areas you will see a lot of cartel vs. cartel violence. In the desert, in run-down towns, and even places like Phoenix and Tucson. It's direct and violent, but rarely covered by news, and even more rarely attributed to cartels. There have been instances where cartel hitmen have dressed up as fake Phoenix and Tucson PD SWAT teams to raid each other's stash houses.



Cartels battle each other in the deserts of Southern Arizona pretty often. We'd happen upon shooting sites fairly often. There are many places in Texas where landowners have abandoned their own land because cartel operations and traffic are too heavy. In my station's AOR we had areas where you simply did not go unless you had backup (preferably in force).



So the cartel presence is definitely within the U.S. As much as they can they're trying to keep mass violence to a minimum because they know it will draw too much attention. They know if they start dumping truck-loads of dismembered bodies on the highways here it might actually make the news and people would start paying attention.



As far as murders and violence deeper within the U.S. (and yes, into Canada) - if it's drug related it could very well be cartel related. There are many gangs and small criminal enterprises who work heavily with the cartels or on their behalf etc.



We're a long way from having a situation as bad as Mexico, though it does cross the border sometimes if you have a small town really close to Mexico. I sat in a truck one night with a buddy of mine who's Mexican girlfriend was on the phone with him for two hours while a huge gun battle was raging around her house. On speaker phone we could hear the constant automatic weapons fire, and boom of grenades (possibly RPG's). She only lived about 20 miles into Mexico. Luckily we're not "there" yet. I hope we never are.