^[1] CIUDAD JUÁREZ, MEXICO: When I left the university campus I was happy. In my sociology class we had talked about the music from Ciudad Juárez and how certain bands really speak to the realities of our streets.

The professor had asked us to think about recurrent themes in the songs produced by emerging bands, and a lively discussion ensued. Some of the most common refrains in the music from Juárez are demands for justice and peace, as well as opposition and rejection of corrupt state institutions, like the police and the army. Yet, I told myself that as long as we sing there is hope.

As I drove from my university to a friend’s house, I began to sing a song about a young girl from Juárez. She was killed by a stray bullet, as the traffickers’ hired guns mowed down some poor devil in the street. It happened only four blocks from where I live, a few months ago. I sang the reprise out loud while driving: “When will the agony end? When will peace finally come?”

I slowed down at a stop sign on one of the streets behind City Hall and I saw a car driving up to the S.U.V. right behind me. I looked in my rear-view mirror and noticed that this car had two passengers, one at the wheel and one in the backseat. How strange, I thought. Then the one in the back lowered his window, pulled out a gun, aimed it at the driver of the S.U.V. behind me, and started shooting.

I will never forget the moment the man rolled down the window, the loud blasts from his pistol, and the agonizing face of the man in the S.U.V. It’s all so vivid in my memory, as if it had just happened. I remember leaning down under the steering wheel and holding my hands against the door. I thought I was going to die too.

A few seconds later the S.U.V. that had just been shot up bumped into me. The driver had lost conscience and his foot was pressing the accelerator. My vehicle jerked forward and bumped into the pick-up truck in front of me. I pressed the breaks and lifted my head to see what was happening. The S.U.V. continued slamming into me. The driver looked dead. Meanwhile, the pick-up in front of me was already fleeing the scene. I got up, and saw smoke billowing from my tires. I released the break pedal, steered the wheel to turn around, and freed myself from the thrusts of the dead man’s S.U.V. As soon as I was out of its way, the S.U.V. shot ahead at full speed. I watched it hit three more cars before it crashed into the guardrail.

I stopped and got off my vehicle. I was shaking and feeling disoriented, but I still had that man’s face in my mind. I could see his eyes as the bullets hit him.

^[2] When I lifted my head again I saw that several people had gathered next to the S.U.V. I could not believe my eyes when I saw them pull out a baby. It was alive. I knew it because it crying and screaming. Then the police arrived.

A few policemen walked up to me and questioned me. They asked absurd, useless questions. I left as soon as I could. But even now that I am home I cannot stop thinking of that man’s face when the bullets hit him. I see the whole scene in slow motion. I can almost hear his cry.

Later that day I found out that there was another passenger in the car. Her name was Lesley Enríquez, and she was an employee of the U.S. Consulate here in Juárez. Her husband, Arthur Redelfs, was the driver, the man whose eyes I could not forget. I learned that he was a detention officer in the El Paso County Jail, in Texas.

As I write this article, I feel hopeless. How could anyone look at that baby girl who just lost her parents and tell her that there is still hope? I remember the assassinations of my university professors, Manuel Arroyo and Alfonso Martínez, and the 15 teenagers who were massacred at a birthday party last January in the colonia Villa de Salvarcar. I think of all the people who died in this stupid war, the innocent and the guilty, and I tell myself that we must do something to stop it.

I am writing to bring attention to the violence that is plaguing my city. I am writing because we are alone here. We are in the hands of incompetent public authorities, and at the mercy of ruthless and highly organized drug trafficking cartels.

The president of Mexico, the military, the federal police, and the municipal police, should all be ashamed. I hope they read this and start doing their job.

I want to be free. I want to live without fear. I want to feel safe walking in the streets of my home city. I want to live in peace again. That peace that was stolen from me and from my fellow citizens, I want it back.