Rosalio Reta was at summer camp, like all the other American teenagers his age. He was a short Texan fifteen-year old with spiky hair, nicknamed “Bart” because he looks like a less yellow Bart Simpson, and loves to skateboard. He was also into the Power Rangers, alternative pop, and Nintendo 64, especially The Mask of Zelda and Donkey Kong.
At camp in this particular year, he was learning useful skills, ones he will remember for the rest of his life. Only at this camp, you don’t learn how to canoe, or sing in a chorus, or make a log fire. You learn how to kill.
When I met him, he was 23, but he could still describe the techniques he learned here and later. Take beheading, for example. “There’s times I’ve seen it they’ve done it with a saw,” he told me through the prison glass. “Blood everywhere. When they start going they hit the jugular and –” he clicks his fingers – “[it’s] everywhere… They put the head right there. The head still moves, makes faces and everything. […]
I’m not sure from where the information came which the author relates about our understanding of what “drug violence’ means. The specific story, of how innocent people get impacted by this kind of violence, is exactly what I thought it was. So this was not shocking to me in any way. Maybe I’m more educated on the issues than I realized.