TIJUANA, Mexico _ By the time the Red Cross ambulance pulled into a crowded apartment complex known as Torres del Lago, the man lying face down on a dirt lot was already dead.
Neighbors leaned out their windows on this warm Friday evening, taking in the activity below: flashing lights of patrol cars, forensic specialists dressed in white, members of the ambulance crew checking for vital signals. And outside the cordoned crime scene, two young women clasped in a tight embrace, one crying out for her brother: "Mi hermano, mi hermano."
Such scenes have been playing out largely in Tijuana's vast working-class neighborhoods in recent months as the violence rises to record levels. So far this year, there have been more than 1,025 victims, according to the Baja California Attorney General's Office, many of them believed to be connected in some way to the neighborhood drug trade.
The sum surpasses last year's total of 910, which had set a record for this city of some 1.8 million residents. During just one week in August, 48 people lost their lives in homicides, nearly the same total of homicide victims in the city of San Diego all of last year.
The flood of victims has overwhelmed homicide investigators, leaving nearly 9 out of 10 crimes unsolved. The state medical examiner's office is struggling with too little space and too few staff as the bodies don't stop arriving and often linger for too long. The city's Red Cross, which responds to 98 percent of Tijuana's ambulance calls, has handled twice as many shootings as last year. In many cases, the victims are already dead by the time the ambulance arrives.
