He might have been a contender for that honor given the low rates of violent crime on the island and the dearth of firearms in the hands of common people.
Naturally, his detractors countered that intimidation was the reason for Cuba’s low crime rate, that Castro’s Cuba was and is still a police state that tolerates no opposition to its communist-led government, and that it violates the human rights of those who disagree with it.
Few could dispute that Cuba’s streets have historically been among the safest in the Americas, regardless of how it was done.
Samantha González doesn’t, however, believe she lives in the safest country in the world.
Two months earlier, her younger brother, Jan Franco, an aspiring music producer, was killed in what appeared to be a gang-related argument.
Jan Franco, who was only 19 years old when he was slain and came from the impoverished Cayo Hueso neighborhood of Havana, was twice stabbed in the chest outside a recording studio after getting into a fight where someone drew a knife.
