This is old news, but it's interesting to see someone noticing it. I've talked about this before and usually get called a racist, bigot, xenophobe, or worse... frequently with denial that such things even exist. That said going back to the 1990s there were comments about this icon appearing as roadside shrines, and being linked to disappearances. "Sangria" rites (Sangria being the Spanish word for "bloodletting") have been a subject of urban legend, observation, and concern for a long time now.
I'm sure there are plenty of people who will make excuses for it, and I doubt anyone will do anything in the near future, but yeah... I think it's a rising problem. The so called "Saint Of Killers" and it's cults and followers are simply getting big enough where it can't be kept underground anymore.
That said, like anything most people who simply drop the name or have the icon are probably just goofing off because of the idea of it, or doing nothing particularly destructive. I mean heck, I have a wooden statue of this sort in my collectibles. The same way that say a bunch of punk rockers or metal heads might drop the name of the devil or hold a drunken but ultimately harmless "ritual" for lulz. But I think as time goes on the more dangerous aspects of this are becoming more common, and that's why it's leaking out. When I hear about violence taking place around the border with people being kidnapped and gruesomely murdered or forced to fight each other, with no seeming logic behind why someone would do any of this, I tend to think of this cult, and the simple fact that for some it's done for spiritual, not rational, reasons.
That said it's not surprising that there are Catholic connections, a few other religions have similar connections, for example I believe Voodoo respects and acknowledges the power of a lot of Catholic icons and traditions as well.
At the end of the day though I think the bottom line is a lot of the sociopaths who do this kind of stuff are simply latching onto something that justifies their behavior. Given the lifestyles that create them to begin with, if it wasn't "Saint Death" they would likely just latch onto something else for justification and belief in rewards.
Me, I'm a Christian (albeit not a deeply spiritual one) so my interest is minimal. I mostly just heard about it due to my interest in criminal justice, and a more general interest in weird stuff. I expect nobody will take it that seriously until a major group or two are busted. For example few people had really heard of Baphomet in the main stream until some cults got busted. One of the down sides to the way the US practices freedom of religion is people tend to stop talking about this kind of thing to avoid persecution of fringe religions in general. For example what happened with "The Solar Temple" and "The Church Of Claire Prophet" was huge at one time, but today it seems there have been intentional efforts at least in the US to let it drop out of the common memory. For example I'd pretty much guarantee most people on this site will never have heard of "The Solar Temple" or why that should be a big deal.
