Think Drug-Related Violence Isn't Your Problem? Think Again.

War At The Border Interactive Feature

Violence related to the drug war in Mexico is nothing new. We have all seen the brutal images of bloody streets and dismembered bodies, but on this side of the border, many of us sit and ask ourselves, "Why does this affect us? Why should we care?"

They're questions citizens outside of Birmingham, Ala. used to ask. Not anymore.

It started on August 20, 2008 when the Shelby County Sheriff's Office received a report about a quintuple homicide. In a county where there are roughly five homicides a year, Sheriff Chris Curry knew this was not a typical Shelby County investigation.

"We're not fishing in a Shelby County pond," Sheriff Curry told AMW. "I just had a gut feeling that this had tentacles reaching far outside of our typical community."

He was right. Sheriff Curry enlisted the help of every agency he could: FBI, DEA, the U.S. Marshals Service. As a team, they found that these killings evolved from a cache of missing drug money.

Investigators learned that almost a half a million dollars had disappeared on its way from the Atlanta area to Mexico. The drug cartels theorized that the five victims had boosted the cash.

Sheriff Curry believes he has all the shooters in custody, but one mystery has not been resolved: nobody has found the stash of money.

With the heightened violence in Mexico, Americans are left asking when truly innocent victims will become murder statistics. The answer is, they already have.

It was a busy night in Chilos Restaurant in Houston, Texas in 2006. Customers came, and customers went, but they weren't all strangers to each other.

Apparently, one Mexican drug cartel member spotted another inside the restaurant. The lookout noticed the target was wearing a Houston Astros jersey, and a hit was ordered.

Moments later, the restaurant's video camera caught a man in an Astros jersey leave the restaurant with his wife and two children.

Would the assassin pull off the hit in front of the target's family?

The video shows that he did, but the real tragedy wouldn't reveal itself for several years. With the help of the DEA, Houston Police say they found out who committed the murders and why.

The only problem was, there were two men in the restaurant that night wearing Houston Astros' jerseys, and the hitmen had shot the wrong one.

Jose Perez, an innocent man out to dinner with his family, a man with no drug connections whatsoever, had been shot and killed.

Violence like this is easy to orchestrate from across the border. In most cases, the hitmen don't even have to go through a checkpoint or cross national borders: the killers are already living in the United States.

Recently, American kids have been convicted of murders at the behest of the Mexican drug cartels. Our kids, authorities tell us, are lured by the appeal of fast cash.

Learn more about Joseph Allen Garcia, an American kid charged with murder who cops say has connections to the Gulf Cartel.