A hardened criminal from the streets of Memphis. One of the biggest drug cartels in Mexico. The corruption, cash, and demand for drugs that fuels an illegal, deadly trade -- and the consequences, for Mexicans and Americans alike.
Mexico: Segways and Cockfights
Published July 6, 2010
Note: I wrote these blog entries in December, as I traveled to Mexico to report on the Craig Petties story. Now that we are ready to publish our articles on the case, we are posting them.
Saturday, Dec. 12. - We're working on a project that involves print and video, and my colleague Alan Spearman is looking for some dramatic images that we can use in the video. So we went to a public fair last night to film both a bullfight and a cockfight. The fair organizers have public relations guys who helped us get around. When it came time to go from the bullfight to the cockfight, they jumped on their Segway devices and rolled down the gravel path. This was likely one of the few times in history that anyone has traveled by Segway to a cockfight. A couple of days ago, a psychiatrist we were interviewing in a drug treatment center quoted Salvador Dali as calling Mexico a surreal country. I think it's an appropriate statement.
The money that drug users spend in your community may be helping Mexican cartels pay their employees, bribe officials, buy weapons, and hire people to torture and kill rivals.
Daniel Connolly has received an honorable mention in the APME International Perspective contest for his Pulitzer Center-supported series "Blood Trade."
Grantee
Daniel Connolly is a staff reporter for The Commercial Appeal, the leading daily newspaper in Memphis.
A Memphis native, Connolly was a Fulbright fellow in Germany in 2001-2002 and completed...
