The wreckage after an attempted highway robbery that left a truck driver dead.
A truck driver died in his cab after being shot while driving on a highway in central Veracruz last month, another victim of a huge increase in violent highway robberies in the state.
The driver was killed, but not before he ran his assailants off the road, causing their vehicle to burst into flames. The armed men burned to death inside.
According to media reports, the truck driver was traveling on the Matatenatito-La Quebradora highway in the municipality of Omealca on December 22 when he and his brother were shot at by men whose aim was to stop and rob the truck, which was transporting Christmas food products.
Even though the unnamed driver was shot in the chest he refused to stop.
As the would-be thieves were pursuing him, the wounded driver rammed their vehicle, causing it to veer off the highway and hit a tree before igniting. Reports didn’t specify how many assailants died in the vehicle fire.
The truck driver subsequently crashed into a highway barrier, the newspaper Reforma reported, and died a short time later from his injuries.
Local Civil Protection personnel attended the scene and transported the driver’s brother to hospital in Córdoba where he was treated for multiple gunshot wounds.
Violent robberies of truck drivers increased 282% in Veracruz in the first 11 months of last year, according to data from the National Public Security System. Authorities opened 111 investigations into truck robberies in the Gulf coast state between January and November 2019 compared to just 29 in the same period of the year before.
The Minatitlán-Las Tinajas and Orizaba-Cumbres de Maltrata highways recorded the highest number of incidents, according to the federal Attorney General’s Office.
Federal authorities have located several warehouses in the state where goods stolen from trucks, including cleaning products, seeds, furniture, beer, mattresses, sugar and building materials, were stored.
The theft from trucks of livestock, domestic appliances, clothes, shoes, soft drinks and refrigerated foodstuffs is also common.
The worst state for truck robberies is México, where the crime rose 40% in the first 11 months of last year to a total of 4,150 incidents. The second worst state was Puebla, where there were 1,968 truck robberies as of the end of November.
The crime is common on the highways from Puebla to both Tlaxcala and Veracruz, Reforma said, even though they are patrolled by state police and the National Guard.
Although President López Obrador has declined to use the presidential plane bought by his predecessors, maintenance of the unused aircraft costs nearly as much as flying it.
The Boeing 787 Dreamliner — ex-president Felipe Calderón ordered it and his successor, Enrique Peña Nieto, took delivery — is currently housed in a hangar at the Southern California Logistics Airport in the United States while the government looks for a buyer.
According to the newspaper Reforma, the annual cost of using the plane during Enrique Peña Nieto’s presidency was 17 million pesos (US $900,000).
The National Defense Secretariat (Sedena) told Reforma that in the nine months that the plane has been grounded in California, the Mexican government has spent US $597,982, nearly 12 million pesos, to maintain it.
That cost breaks down to 1.32 million pesos per month, meaning that the annual cost of the plane’s upkeep would total almost 16 million.
Just cleaning the plane costs $5,000, and occasionally it must be taken out of the hangar, which costs about $67,000.
In July of last year he assured the public that the plane’s sale was “in its final stage.”
“Six proposals have been presented and the United Nations, which is helping us in the sale process, is deciding on the best offer. I expect that we’ll know as soon as possible, I would even expect it to be resolved this week, according to what I’ve been told,” he said at the time.
But the aircraft remains unsold.
AMLO, as he is commonly known, told reporters Friday morning that the plane has not sold because its purchase itself “was a fraud.”
“The presidential plane was a fraud even at its purchase because it’s a plane that can only fly long distances, of [at least] five hours. It’s not for flying within Mexico,” he said.
Kristhian Hernández addresses an audience in Felipe Carillo Puerto on December 15. Lexie Harrison-Cripps
A lack of transparency in the federal government’s plans to build the 1,500-kilometer Maya Train through indigenous communities, world heritage sites and biosphere reserves in Mexico’s southeastern states has fuelled criticism that the views of the affected communities are being disregarded.
The government is under fire from academics, civil society and international organizations including human rights experts at the United Nations over its implementation of the project. The issues stem from a lack of information, leading to questions about whether or not due diligence has been carried out and why the findings are not being openly shared.
The government has claimed that the train will bring increased tourism, economic development and job opportunities and relieve pressure on crowded roads while offering a cheaper transportation option for commuters and businesses.
The train’s route runs through Chiapas, Yucatán, Quintana Roo, Campeche and Tabasco, all of which have many towns in need of investment after years of neglect by government. The project includes 18 stations and 12 development zones.
However, Giovanna Gasparello, a researcher at the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) and contributing author of a study on the social and territorial impact of the Maya Train, is concerned that there are no studies to show a link between the project and the development that has been forecast.
The route of the Maya Train. Stations are indicated with red circles. fonatur
She rejects the government’s “neo-liberal argument that the free market will automatically bring benefits to the community,” suggesting instead that it should take responsibility for investment in the southeastern states instead of leaving it to market forces.
Back in November 2018, hundreds of academics wrote an open letter to President López Obrador (known colloquially as AMLO) to request detailed impact studies.
However, David Ordaz, media director at the National Tourism Promotion Fund (Fonatur), confirmed in December that no impact studies had been carried out for the project and the track that already exists [between Palenque and Valladolid] does not require one.
Gasparello disagrees with that position. She says the existing tracks are currently used by trains traveling at around 50 km/h to carry freight whereas the proposed passenger trains will travel at 160 km/h, and “therefore should be treated as a new project and analyzed in full.”
The government has commissioned some basic engineering studies, but it has not released the findings. On December 13, the day before consultation meetings began with indigenous communities, Fonatur held a press conference and announced that it had received the studies, but did not share their contents. It did not respond to repeated requests by Mexico News Daily to see a copy of the full report.
Meetings between the government and the academic community have not yielded any further information either. The National Institute of Anthropology and History invited Fonatur to a forum called “Maya Train: Realities and Myths” in the hope of opening a dialogue with the government. But the tourism development agency declined to disclose any additional studies or information, confirmed INAH’s Gasparello.
The type of terrain through which the train will pass in Campeche. Lexie Harrison-Cripps
Furthermore, INAH’s requests for information from Infomex, the federal government’s transparency platform, have been denied on the grounds that the requested information has been classified for six years.
Where information is not regarded as classified, a review of the Infomex responses to Maya Train information requests shows a standard response: “After a detailed search in line with legal requirements, no documents were found.” This response was also given in December to a request for “any documents relating to the economic, technical, social, environmental and market aspects of the project or investment and finance reports.”
Authorities have stressed that the project will only go ahead if the people want it to: the consultation documents say “we decide together.” Government representatives at consultation meetings repeated the message, stating that the government will consider “second best options” in the event that a consensus cannot be reached.
But in September López Obrador declared that “come rain, thunder or lightning, the Maya Train will go ahead.”
For that reason some participants at the consultation meetings considered it a done deal.
Oscar Alarcha of the Miguel Allende ejido in Champotón, Campeche, said he “would not oppose the consultation as it would go ahead in any event, with or without the consent of the people.”
An ejido leader addresses a consultation in Felipe Carillo Puerto. Lexie Harrison-Cripps
But the process has been criticized by numerous organizations, such as the Mexican Civil Council for Sustainable Forestry, for being an empty gesture with insufficient information and time to enable effective decision-making.
Gasparello’s research has shown that different communities received different levels of information throughout 2019. Nevertheless, the formal information stage of the consultation was not held until November with the consultation meetings in mid-December, leaving only two weeks to make a decision or raise objections.
The consultation was organized by the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples (INPI), a federal government agency. Spokeswoman Maritza Licona said information had been widely disseminated by way of the indigenous language radio stations, leaflets in various languages, meetings with community leaders and information meetings held at the end of November. Mexico News Daily requested a copy of those leaflets but INPI was unable to source a Spanish-language version.
Opponent Pedro Uc, who claims he received a death threat for his position on the train, considers the consultation meetings to be a government “trick” that only involved a selected part of the community.
Because the route passes through indigenous communities, the consultation process must satisfy the requirements of the International Labor Organization’s convention on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples.
The Mexico office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (ONU-DH) has criticized the consultation process, saying it fell short of those international standards. The UN’s statement triggered an angry response by the Mexican government, which not only formally denied the accusation but also criticized the office for having “prejudiced any future relations, caused a climate of uncertainty and show[n] a lack of respect for the legitimate voluntary opinions expressed by the indigenous community.”
A man casts his ballot in the Maya Train vote in December. Lexie Harrison-Cripps
Despite the lack of detailed information, most of the participants in the consultation meetings were enthusiastic about the project’s possibilities, albeit without any evidence that the advantages would actually materialize.
A representative from Santa Cruz, Campeche, was excited about the potential for the train to “put my small community on the map.” He hopes the train will bring tourists to create a market for artisans’ handcrafts and “relieve the strain on the fishing industry” on which his people currently rely.
But another speaker questioned the government’s spending priorities. Oscar Alarcha of the Miguel Allende ejido asked that the government address healthcare, charging that services are expensive and people have to travel far to receive decent care. Local care is provided by “inexperienced” personnel, he said, and is not available seven days a week.
While opinion on the Maya Train is polarized, what is not in dispute is the need for investment in the southeastern states.
But the current practice of arbitrarily disseminating information to the media and local communities is only fuelling public cynicism and criticism rather than enabling a detailed and balanced consideration of the project.
If you’ve heard the song La Bamba you’ve heard son jarocho, a regional style of music from Veracruz, jarocho being a term used to describe someone or something from that state.
But despite the importance of the music to the state’s traditional culture, passing it on to the next generation is not an easy task.
However, musician Anastasio Martínez has taken on the challenge. In his case, it takes the form of a fledgling program in the southern municipality of Cosoleacaque to teach the making of the traditional guitars that are used, called jaranas.
“We began the program because there was a certain level of disinterest in son jarocho. It was being lost in the local culture, at least in southern Veracruz. The tradition was dying because children were not interested,” being drawn to other attractions such as celebrating Halloween, Martínez said.
With only four months in existence, the program already has 30 participants aged 7 to 17. Even three of the mothers accompanying their children have started to make jaranas.
Martínez is encouraged. “The response has been very good. They are enjoying how I work, and they find they like tracing the molds and designing their own instruments, adding a drawing or other detail.”
Martínez began by teaching the older children, who have in turn shared their knowledge with the younger ones.
The children in the program have made various types of guitars as well as the bajo jarocho (jarocho bass) which is similar to the large guitar (guitarrón) used in mariachi music.
The wood used for the instruments is cedar. “We tell them how long it takes for a tree to grow and when wood can be worked. It takes more or less three and a half months to dry the wood after the tree has been cut.”
Parents have noticed a change in the participating children, who are no longer spending so much time on their cell phones, playing their instruments instead.
Martínez began playing son jarocho when he was 17. “In my family, no one is a musician. I am the only one who is involved in son jarocho. I learned guitar making because I had no musical instruments since they are expensive . . .” He has now been making instruments for 13 years.
Future plans include collaborating with other programs to train traditional musicians, especially those working with the musical styles of Veracruz.
Son jarocho itself is a fusion of indigenous, Spanish and African musical elements, a result of the populations that have influenced this eastern state starting in the colonial period. The musical style is most traditionally played only with jaranas, which provide both melody and rhythm.
Songs are typically about everyday life in the state with subjects such as sailing, cattle breeding, love and nature.
Although Nuevo León’s new plastic bag ban doesn’t enter into force for another five months, supermarkets in Monterrey have already stopped providing them to their customers.
Shoppers who hadn’t heard the news found themselves having to buy paper bags for 6.5 pesos (US $0.34) or cloth tote bags for 9 pesos (US $0.48) after the new year began.
The ban officially takes effect on May 11, but stores like HEB and Soriana got a jump on the new measure.
HEB had made announcements over its PA system in the days leading up to the new year as part of its “Un-bag yourself” campaign, while Soriana placed signage around its stores to notify clients.
Walmart said it would continue to provide plastic bags until its current stocks run out.
Some Oxxo and 7-Eleven convenience stores stopped providing plastic bags in mid-2019, while others only provided them upon request.
The bag ban also prohibits the sale of trash and lunch bags that contain less than 50% biodegradable materials, as well as the use of straws in bars and restaurants. Straws will still be available for sale for personal use.
The law does not prohibit the use of plastic bags for supermarket produce.
Mahahual is one of the stops on the new Quintana Roo tour.
As part of its “Journey Across Mexico in Eight Days” program, the Mexican Association of Travel Agencies (AMAV) is preparing new tourism products in Quintana Roo to bring in more visitors.
The “Journey Across Quintana Roo in Eight Days” vacation package is a tour in which 42-passenger buses will take visitors from Chetumal International Airport to top tourist attractions with two departures a week.
National AMAV president Eduardo Paniagua Morales said the objective of the program is to create new vacation products that provide tourists with fresh experiences and generate more revenue for the states that participate.
The tours in Quintana Roo are expected to generate 756,000 pesos (US $40,000) a week, he said.
They will take tourists to popular and not-so-popular sites alike, such as the Bacalar lagoon, the coastal town of Mahahual, the cenote sinkhole in La Unión on the border with Belize, and forests of thousand-year-old mahogany trees in Felipe Carrillo Puerto.
Also on the itinerary will be Tulum, the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve, the Cobá lagoon, more cenotes and other destinations. The tour will end in Puerto Morelos.
Paniagua said that at the national level the program is estimated to bring in 450 million pesos (US $23.8 million) of revenue and will start off in the states of Tabasco, San Luis Potosí and Campeche once the details are worked out with AMAV affiliates and tourism service providers.
In addition to the eight-day vacation packages, the association is also putting together three and five-day tours.
The idea is to gradually add other states, for which AMAV has also held meetings with tourism secretaries in Nuevo León, Oaxaca, Coahuila and Zacatecas to plan new tourism routes among their Pueblos Mágicos and other tourist destinations.
The association’s offering of tours can be viewed on its website (Spanish only).
January-November remittances since 2013, in billions of US dollars.
Remittances sent home by Mexicans working abroad fell 2.25% in November compared to the same month of 2018, the first annual decrease in more than three years.
Bank of México data shows that total remittances in the penultimate month of the year were US $2.89 billion whereas overseas workers – most of whom are in the United States – sent US $2.96 billion home in November 2018.
The average single remittance in November 2019 was US $328, down 4% from US $342 a year earlier.
The annual decline was the first since March 2016, when remittances fell 2.8%. The month over month decline between October and November was 7.2%.
Experts who spoke with the newspaper El Financiero said that a slowdown in the industrial sector in the United States, economic uncertainty in that country and the strength of the Mexican peso in the last months of 2019 were the main reasons why remittances decreased in November.
“The majority of remittances come from compatriots who are employed in the industrial sector, construction for example,” said Ángel Huerta, an analyst at the financial group Ve por Más.
“What has been seen in recent months is that industry in the United States has been slowing down more than the rest of the economy, which becomes a risk for the sending of money to Mexico.”
Janneth Quiroz, deputy director of economic analysis at the Monex financial group, said the 40-day General Motors strike, which ended in late October, and the strength of the peso were factors in November’s decline.
Alberto Ramos, chief Latin America economist at Goldman Sachs in New York, said that “remittances slowed down more than expected in November due to the 5% appreciation of the peso against the dollar since November 2018.”
He added that the annual decline in remittances when converted to pesos was 6.9%.
Despite the fall recorded in November, remittances sent to Mexico in the first 11 months of the year were the highest ever recorded by the central bank.
Mexicans working abroad sent a total of US $32.96 billion home between January and November, a 7.43% increase compared to the same period of 2018, a year in which remittances hit a record high. Annual remittances have increased every year since 2013, statistics show.
Remittances will likely pick up in early 2020, according to a report by Monex, which said that it’s probable that money transfers will recover due to the normalization of automotive production in the United States and positive construction figures seen in recent weeks.
Ramos of Goldman Sachs said he expected remittances to “stabilize to a moderately positive level in coming months,” adding that the record transfers in 2019 helped Mexico’s current account and had a positive impact on private consumption, particularly that of low-income families “who have a high propensity for consumption” and receive the lion’s share of the money.
The energy front has been quiet for the past week since we entered that awkward period between Christmas and New Year’s where markets are technically open but most people are out of the office, so market activity is relatively low.
As we begin 2020, Mexicans wait to see how their president will conduct business after holding power for over a year. The excuse of inheriting a bad economy from the previous governments is not an argument that will hold much longer with citizens, meaning President López Obrador and his Morena party need to start taking responsibility for their decisions and avoid scapegoating, a tactic the party used multiple times last year.
Whether the party was right or wrong in its judgment, it is time for Morena to take the bull by its horns and steer the country under its agenda, taking full responsibility for the consequences of its actions.
Today I want to talk about a legal change in global fuel usage and legislation I briefly commented on in early December. Entering a new decade, the International Maritime Organization (IMO), an institution that governs maritime regulations and is a subsidiary agency of the United Nations, implemented IMO 2020. What is it and why is it relevant to the common Mexican and how will it affect Mexico?
In short, the IMO implemented a change effective January 1 forcing the shipping sector to reduce significantly their emissions, that is to say their carbon footprint, in international waters. As a result, tankers will now have to utilize a cleaner refined product fuel.
In essence, it will be a cleaner diesel than the dirty fuel oil they have used. The regulation means our seas will see an 80% reduction in sulfur emissions. When we talk about refined product fuel, we are referring to the production of separated fuels that are created when crude oil enters a refinery. The long-chain and higher-weight hydrocarbon makeup of crude oil converts to more widely used refined fuels such as gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.
Through this process, the cheapest of the refined fuel produced is known as heavy fuel/fuel oil or bunker fuel. There are subtle differences in the chemical makeup of these fuels but essentially they are the densest residual fuels created with the highest content of sulfur and dirt still in the fuel.
After the Great Depression and the Second World War, there was a move by shipping companies to stop burning coal for energy and turn to oil. Since fuel oil was “bottom of the barrel” and therefore cheap, it became common for ships to use it. There were financial and safety reasons for it too: ships literally burn tonnes of fuel and therefore a less expensive, highly sulfuric fuel is going to be cheaper to buy, and it has a higher flash point, reducing the danger of explosions.
The fuel’s higher energy content gave shippers more value for money in the low and medium speed engines used by ships that travel at much slower speeds than other forms of transportation.
IMO 2020 means that the current maximum fuel oil sulfur limit of 3.5 weight percent (wt%) will fall to 0.5.
How will this affect Mexican consumers?
Higher demand from shipping companies for low sulfur distillate fuels will push refineries worldwide to use middle distillates such as diesel-based marine gasoil (MGO), diesel (especially ultra-low sulfur diesel) and jet fuel to blend down HSFO (high sulfur fuel oil) and produce the compliant fuel. However, Pemex’s refineries do not produce the middle distillates, meaning that it and its trading subsidiaries will have to import diesel from the U.S. and other nations to be able to supply ships that enter Mexican ports.
From a pricing standpoint, if more diesel is used to produce MGO this will tighten supply in the refined fuels market, causing refinery margins – including jet and diesel fuel – to spike. This will have a knock-on effect for consumers in Mexico since there will be less availability of the aforementioned fuels in the U.S., meaning the cost of gasoline and diesel will increase since they are priced into an import pricing structure, given that Pemex also imports those fuels in large quantities.
Refineries with advanced processing flexibility could also decide to boost diesel yields at the expense of jet fuel production, adding the extra risk of lower jet fuel supply on the global market. But this is not an option for Pemex refineries that are heavy producers of fuel oil and, on average, are functioning at 30% capacity, which is why Pemex imports so much fuel.
How will this affect the Mexican environment?
Everyone in Mexico is fully aware of the contamination issues in some of its largest cities.
According to a report published by Nature Communications, “cleaner marine fuels will reduce related premature mortality and morbidity by 34% and 54% respectively, representing a ~2.6% global reduction in cardiovascular and lung cancer deaths and a ~3.6% global reduction in childhood asthma.” It has also been found that approximately 70% of ship emissions take place within 400 kilometers of land, waiting to dock at their respective ports.
In Mexico, a country that boasts 102 ports and 15 out-of-port terminals, this figure means a significant proportion of the population, especially communities that are perhaps unaware of the detrimental effects of sulfur oxides polluting the atmosphere.
IMO 2020 hopes to pave the way to less severe effects on respiratory systems and save marine life, reducing our carbon footprint in the world of commodity trading.
Shipping is the oldest form of merchandise trading and it is not a sector that is going anywhere so this type of law is essential to reducing emissions worldwide.
The writer is the founder of Indimex Group, a Mexico City company focused on the procurement, marketing, trading and optimizing of refined petroleum products as well as investing in and operating physical assets for the movement of fuels in Mexico and the United States. His bulletin about developments in the Mexican energy industry appears weekly on Mexico News Daily.
The president claims that El Chapo, right, had people in government working for him.
The arrest of former president Felipe Calderón’s security secretary in the United States last month is proof that convicted drug trafficker Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán had people working for him in the government, President López Obrador said on Thursday.
Asked at his morning press conference whether he had evidence to back up a claim he made in his new year’s message that there was a time in which Guzmán had the “same power or same influence” as the president because there was a “conspiracy” between him and the government, López Obrador said the proof was that Genaro García Luna is accused of links to the Sinaloa Cartel.
The former security chief, a key architect of the so-called war on drugs launched by Calderón, was detained in Dallas, Texas, on December 9 on charges that he allowed the cartel once headed by El Chapo to operate in exchange for multimillion-dollar bribes.
“That’s the only proof . . . He was in charge of security, Calderón’s right-hand [man],” López Obrador told reporters, adding that García also worked for former presidents Vicente Fox and Carlos Salinas.
“. . . He’s accused of protecting a criminal organization, that’s the proof! It still needs to be shown [in court] but the signs are there [that he’s guilty],” he said.
García has not entered a plea but is expected to go on trial in New York.
Declarations of assets filed by García between 2002 and 2008 when he was head of the now-defunct Federal Investigation Agency in Fox’s administration and then Calderon’s public security secretary showed that his wealth increased fivefold in the period and that he bought and sold several properties.
The United States indictment against the ex-official said that “financial records obtained by the [U.S.] government” showed that “by the time García Luna relocated to the United States in 2012, he had amassed a personal fortune of millions of dollars.”
The president questioned where that wealth could have come from if García wasn’t involved in criminal activities.
“Where did the houses and apartments come from,” López Obrador asked, adding that corruption in past governments was seen as something “normal.”
“That’s what I was referring to. We cannot allow crime to govern . . . It’s not that Guzmán Loera was here in the [National] Palace [or] in [the former presidential residence] Los Pinos but he had representatives in the government and that is extremely serious.”
The president also took the opportunity to launch a broadside at “conservatives,” a term he uses to describe members of past governments as well as critics of his administration, including journalists who write unflattering reports.
“Their true doctrine [is] hypocrisy. Don’t you remember what they said recently about the Sinaloa case?” López Obrador said referring to the government’s decision to release one of El Chapo’s sons after the Sinaloa Cartel reacted violently to the operation to capture him.
“[They said that] we faltered and that we should have used a heavy hand. What is a heavy hand? Dictatorship. And then it comes out that he who was in charge of security during a period of government was at the service of a criminal group and the conservatives kept quiet,” he said.
In Mexico, federal financial investigators are looking into the possible embezzlement of more than 4.8 billion pesos (US $250 million) in federal funds to companies with links to García.
The Chihuahua government will build a 50,000-square-meter mega-cemetery in Ciudad Juárez for the burial of unidentified and unclaimed bodies.
The State Forensic Interment Center will be located on the state government-owned San Isidro-Zaragoza reserve in the northern border city and include facilities capable of storing up to 800 bodies prior to burial.
Construction of the cemetery and facilities that will include an ossuary, or bone room, and six refrigerated morgue chambers will cost 50 million pesos (US $2.65 million).
Chihuahua Attorney General César Augusto Peniche said in an interview that the cemetery is needed because unidentified and unclaimed bodies are currently buried in regular cemeteries where the corpses of crime victims are sometimes not managed as they should be.
In the state-operated mega-cemetery, there will be “complete control” both in the burial and exhumation of bodies, he said.
“We intend to comply with the highest standards,” Peniche said, adding that the International Red Cross participated in the process to design the new cemetery.
“We intend to have a dignified space, to manage remains professionally and [to have] strict control on the entry, location and removal [of bodies],” he said.
State government statistics show that there were 2,410 homicides in Chihuahua in the first 11 months of 2019 of which 1,402 – or 58% – were in Ciudad Juárez.
Between October 2016, the month Governor Javier Corral took office, and October 2019, state authorities buried 818 unidentified bodies and 207 corpses of people whose identities were established but went unclaimed nevertheless.
Of the former number, 468 bodies – or 57% of the total – were killed in Juárez.
Homicides in the border city located across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, increased 61% from 771 in 2017 to 1,245 in 2018 before rising an additional 12.6% last year even before data for December murders was included.
