Baja California Sur recorded 50 homicides between January and April 2026, with more than half caused by traffic accidents rather than violent crime, according to the state’s Common Jurisdiction Criminal Incidence Report.
Of the 50 deaths, 32 were classified as culpable homicides, meaning unintentional killings. Twenty-seven of those, or 54% of the total, resulted from traffic collisions. Intentional homicides (homicidios dolosos) totaled 16 over the same period. Ten of the 16 involved firearms, one involved a knife, and four were committed with other weapons. One case was listed as unspecified.
March Was the Deadliest Month
The monthly breakdown shows 10 homicides in January, 10 in February, 19 in March, and 11 in April. March’s spike accounted for nearly 40% of the four-month total. The report did not specify which municipalities saw the most cases, though La Paz and Los Cabos are the state’s two largest population centers.
For comparison, Baja California Sur recorded 228 total homicides across all of 2025. Of those, 114 were tied to traffic incidents and 80 involved firearms. If the current pace of 50 deaths in four months holds steady, the state would finish 2026 with roughly 150 homicides, a potential decrease from last year’s total.
Road Deaths Outpace Violent Crime
The data places traffic accidents well ahead of gun violence as the leading cause of homicide in the state. At 10 firearm homicides in four months, BCS is on pace for about 30 gun-related killings in 2026, compared to 80 in all of 2025. That would represent a significant drop, though the year is far from over.
The state’s violence had been trending sharply upward in recent years. In the first eight months of 2025, intentional homicides in BCS rose 124% compared to the same period in 2024, according to data from the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System. The organization México Evalúa ranked BCS fifth nationwide in lethal violence during that period. Analysts linked the surge to drug trafficking disputes between factions of the Sinaloa Cartel using the peninsula as a transit corridor toward the northern border.
For the 2000s through the early 2010s, BCS typically saw between 25 and 50 total murders per year. That figure began climbing in 2014 and peaked at 244 homicides in 2018.
The homicide data was first reported by BCS Noticias on May 27, 2026.