Murder rates: Juárez deadlier than Miami in '80s

via Las Cruces Sun-News:

They called themselves "cocaine cowboys," and in the early 1980s, they gave Miami the highest murder rate in the world.

Daytime gunfights in the middle of the city between Colombian and Cuban drug cartels were routine. The morgue in Miami became so crowded that Dade County leased a refrigerated trailer from Burger King to handle all the bodies.

In the late 1980s and into the 1990s, the drug violence shifted to other cities, including Detroit and Los Angeles, where street gangs fought for control of the crack cocaine market. Gangs made these cities among the most violent in the United States.

Today, Juárez bears the unwelcome title of deadliest city in North America.