NEW LOW: VIOLENCE CLAIMS A MOURNING MOTHER

How bad can it get in Mexico? Let's hope this is finally bottom. Just
hours after the memorial service of a national hero, drug-cartel assassins
gunned down his mother, brother, a sister and an aunt.

Another sister was in serious condition.

It was obvious payback for the government having killed Mexican
drug-cartel leader Arturo Beltran Leyva. He was called a "boss of bosses."

And it came with a clear message from drug lords: Intimidate those in the
armed forces so they fear not only for their own lives, but for the lives
of their families.

Mexican drug-cartel expert Jorge Chabat said, "The message is very clear:
It's to intimidate not only the government but its flesh and blood."

Melquisedet Angulo was the lone marine killed in a shootout south of
Mexico City that took the life of Beltran Leyva and other cartel members
last week.

Meanwhile, in Juarez, where more than 4,000 people have been assassinated
the past two years, gunmen shot down two street vendors at 9:30 a.m.
Tuesday near the ProNaF tourist zone.

Dead are a 36-year-old man and a 61-year-old woman. They sold burritos and
juices.

For more than a year, the killings had been limited to mostly cartel vs.
cartel in the war to win control of the drug flow.

But now innocents are being sacrificed, seemingly at will, and are among
the 14,000 dead.

Beltran Leyva was one of the most-wanted drug lords in Mexico and was the
biggest trafficker taken down by President Felipe Calderon's government so
far.

U.S. officials say much of the bloodshed in Mexico has been a result of
Beltran Leyva's cartel. And when his death was confirmed, Mexican
officials braced for payback.

But to kick in a door and brazenly shoot a dead marine's family?

Only hours earlier, Angulo's mother, Irma Cordova, had been presented with
the Mexican flag that covered the coffin of her fallen son at the services
in Mexico City.

How bad can it get in Mexico?