THE BORDER REPORT

Over the past several months, one story that went virtually ignored in the media was the slowly growing whisperings about bringing back the death penalty to Mexico.

But after this grenade attack that killed eight people and injured another 85 last night in Morelia, I believe that's about to change. By all press accounts, it was a horrific attack, taking place at the height of the Mexican Grito, in a crowded plaza. No sooner did the mayor sound the toll signaling the beginning of festivities for Mexico's 198 years of independence than the first grenade went off.

Will the back-blast from this attack shift the political winds? I believe it will because on the citizen level, those winds have been shifting direction for some time. Mexico hasn't executed someone (legally) since 1961 but it wasn't until December 2005 that Pres. Vicente Fox Quesada signed a bill into law abolishing the death penalty.

But Pres. Felipe Calderón has been very, very interesting when it comes to discussing the death penalty.

Last month, Texas executed gang-rapist and murderer José Ernesto Medellín. The Mexican Senate demanded that Calderón object to the killing. He stayed silent instead.

Two weeks later, when the body of 14-year-old kidnap victim Fernando Marti was found in a car outside D.F., Calderón stepped up, proclaiming his desire to pronounce the death penalty on any police officers who participate in kidnappings.

That time, there was noticably less protest from the Mexican Congress. Probably because citizens were beginning to lean toward his ideas.

For years now, Mexicans have tolerated the narco-wars, mostly because they didn't have a choice. For the most part, narcos shoot straight and most of the 2,680 reported homicides this year have been people who deserved it. One intelligence report drafted by CISEN, the Mexican CIA, shows that less than one percent of the 800-plus murders in Cd. Juárez were innocents.

But this is changing. Entirely unscientific, I know, but plenty of people in my social networks who even two years ago would have blanched at the idea are talking different now. I see the call for death to this bola de ratas swarming Web site message boards, I hear it being discussed in Sanborn's in Hermosillo and Juárez and even some of those involved in the life are comfortable with the new challenge state-sponsored death will present, albeit, for their enemies, not themselves.

Mexicans weren't bothered in the least when Texas executed Medellín; they mostly understood that the monster had gone too far with the rape and strangling murder of two teenage girls.

Last night's narco-attack went too far as well. Now we'll see if it went far enough to give Calderón the backing of his citizens. If it does, the Mexican Congress will have to go along with his wishes. And it's clear, this president wishes to bring back la pena de muerte.

-- Michel Marizco