Mexican Schools Teaching Students How Not to Get Shot

Stop, drop, and make like an opossum.

Mexican officials are teaching school children how to dive for cover if they come under fire from gangs fighting over the Pacific beach city of Acapulco as drug violence reaches deeper into everyday life.

At a drill in an Acapulco primary school this week, instructors used toy guns that simulated the sound of real gunfire. "Get down, let's go!" shouted an instructor as children threw themselves on the ground in classrooms and the playground and then crawled toward safety, burying their heads in their hands.

As drug violence spreads across Mexico -- killing more than 31,000 people over the past four years -- schools and kindergartens have been caught in the cross-fire in flashpoints like Acapulco and on the U.S. border in Monterrey and Tijuana.

h/t ENDO

Meanwhile...In America...

As violent drug cartels take over Mexico and expand their criminal enterprises north, the United States has signed a “trusted traveler” agreement that allows pre-screened Mexican airline passengers to bypass lengthy airport security checkpoints.