High School Students Film Mock Narco Threat Video In Valparaiso, Zacatecas

By "El Huaso" for Borderland Beat

Videos have surfaced showing students posing as narcos and making joke threats towards other students at a high school in Valparaiso, Zacatecas. The videos are a reference to narco comunicados, violent videos released by organized crime groups in Mexico featuring threats, executions of rivals, and torture. They are a tragic reminder of the effect the hyper violent environment is having on Mexico's youth.

In the video, the students pose with musical instruments as weapons, wear masks, and yell mock threats at students at another high school in the area.

The Violent Context

News site NTR Zacatecas reported that the mayor of Valparaiso, Eleuterio Ramos Leal, lamented the normalization of violence that has affected young people. 

According to Mexico's defense ministry, Zacatecas has become violent because of its geographical value to criminal groups, who seek to control it's highways and transportation routes north. Zacatecas ranks 10th by homicide count this year, with 861 deaths, amounting to a homicide rate of 53 per 100,000, according to a government security briefing in September. While these figure are alarmingly high, the homicide rate was actually twice as high the year before, the highest in the nation, at 107 per 100,000.

The conflict is between a faction of the Sinaloa Cartel and the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación, as reported by Borderland Beat. As the security situation spirals, publicly placed bodies, narco messages, and shootouts have become commonplace. As of March 2022, there were at least 10,000 internally displaced persons in the state, according to Zacatecas senator Geovanna Bañuelos.

Source: NTR Zacatecas, Portal Valparaiso, El Financiero, INEGI Homicide 2021, Regeneracion, SwissInfo, September 20 security briefing