The last straw in Mexico?

Mexicans across the country are expressing outrage at what may become the symbolic last straw in its losing battle against rampant criminality. Javier Morena, the five-year old son of fruit vendors in a poor barrio of Mexico City and who disappeared on October 26, was found to have been murdered by kidnappers who injected his heart with acid -- as the AP reports, "a new low even for this country’s brutal gangs."

Many reports suggest that popular reaction to Morena's murder recalls similar emotions stirred after the death of 14 year-old Fernando Marti in August, during which over 100,000 people marched across Mexico City in solidarity against the rising tide of crime in the country.

According to published estimates, the number of kidnappings through September 2008 has already eclipsed the record high from all of last year.

Sources: AP, New York Times, Univision, El Economista