Author Topic: Border violence pushes north  (Read 346 times)

Elano

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Border violence pushes north
« on: August 19, 2007, 05:11:14 AM »
Drug cartels extend their reach into Texas and Arizona. Citizens and immigrants alike are victimized.

Violent crime along the U.S.-Mexico border, which has long plagued the scrubby, often desolate stretch, is increasingly spilling northward into the cities of the American Southwest.

In Phoenix, deputies are working the unsolved case of 13 border crossers who were kidnapped and executed in the desert. In Dallas, nearly two dozen high school students have died in the last two years from overdoses of a $2-a-hit Mexican fad drug called "cheese heroin."

The crime surge, most acute in Texas and Arizona, is fueled by a gritty drug war in Mexico that includes hostages being held in stash houses, daylight gun battles claiming innocent lives, and teenage hit men for the Mexican cartels. Shipments of narcotics and vans carrying illegal workers on U.S. highways are being hijacked by rival cartels fighting over the lucrative smuggling routes. Fires are being set in national forests to divert police.

In Laredo, Texas, a teenager who had been driving around the United States in a $70,000 luxury sedan confessed to becoming a Mexican cartel hitman when he was just 13. In Nogales, Ariz., an 82-year-old man was caught with 79 kilograms of cocaine in his Chevrolet Impala. The youth was sentenced to 40 years in prison in one slaying case and is awaiting trial in another; the old man received 10 years.

In Southern California, Border Patrol agents routinely encounter smugglers driving immigrant-laden cars who try to escape by driving the wrong way on busy freeways. And stash houses packed with dozens of illegal immigrants have been discovered in Los Angeles.

But a huge U.S. law enforcement buildup along the border that started a decade ago has helped stabilize border-related crime rates on the California side; a recent wave of kidnappings in Tijuana has been largely contained south of the border.

The sprawling border has been crisscrossed for years by the poor seeking work and by drug dealers in the hunt for U.S. dollars. For decades neither the United States nor Mexico has managed to halt the immigrants and narcotics pushing north. But with the Mexican government's newly pledged war on the cartels, and an explosion of violence among rival networks, a new crime dynamic is emerging: The violence that has hit Mexican border towns is spreading deeper into the United States.

U.S. officials are promising more Border Patrol and federal firearms officers, more fences and more surveillance towers along the desert stretches where the two nations meet.

But law enforcement officials are wary of how this new burst in violence will play out, especially because the enemy is better armed and more sophisticated than ever. Among their concerns are budget cutbacks in some agencies -- including a hiring freeze in the Drug Enforcement Administration -- and community opposition to the surveillance towers.

Johnny Sutton, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas, said he would need at least 20,000 new Border Patrol agents in El Paso alone to hold back the tide. But that is the total number of agents that Washington hopes to have along the whole border by the end of 2009.

In six years, Sutton's office has tried 33,000 defendants, about 90% of them on drug and immigration violations. "We're body-slamming them the best we can," he said.

In Phoenix, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said there were 10,000 inmates in his jail and overflow tents; 2,000 of them are "criminal aliens" from the border, he said. His deputies are investigating the deaths of 13 people executed in the desert.

Jennifer Allen, director of Border Action Network, a Tucson nonprofit that supports immigrants' rights, said Washington and Mexico City need fresh approaches. "The smugglers are no longer mom-and-pop organizations. Now it's an industry," she said. "So the violence increases. That's incredibly predictable."

Raul Benitez, an international relations professor in Mexico City who also taught at American University in Washington, blames both countries for the crime wave. As long as Americans crave drugs and the cartels want money, Benitez said, "security in both directions is jeopardized."

Nestor Rodriguez, a University of Houston sociologist, said people on both sides of the Rio Grande viewed themselves as one community.

"People say, 'The river doesn't divide us,; it unites us,' " he said. "When you're at ground zero at the border, you see yourselves as one community -- for good or bad."

Rodriguez knows. His first cousin, Juan Garza, born in the United States but trained by criminals in Mexico, ran his own murder-and-drug enterprise out of Brownsville, Texas. He was executed in 2001 by the United States.

"Of course there is a spillover of violence into this country," Rodriguez said.

"It's pouring across our border, and anybody can get caught up in it."

The small town of Sierra Vista, Ariz., learned firsthand of the rising violence in 2004, when police chased a pickup carrying 24 illegal immigrants on the border town's main drag, Buffalo Soldier Trail. Speeds reached up to 100 mph. The truck went airborne, hit half a dozen cars and killed a recently married elderly couple waiting at a stoplight.

"It was just the worst kind of tragedy," said Cochise County Atty. Ed Rheinheimer. "The coyotes [smugglers] are just more willing to either shoot at the police, fight with the police, or to try to flee."

Even more brazen have been several kidnappings of 50 to 100 immigrants by rival cartels, which hide them in stash houses in and around Phoenix until families pay a ransom. One captive's face was burned with a cigarette, another person nearly suffocated in a plastic bag. A woman was raped. Fingers have been sliced off and sent back to families with demands for money.

The border-crime issue became so urgent in Arizona that top officials met in Tucson in June with their counterparts from Sonora, Mexico. Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano agreed to help train Sonoran police to track wire payments to smugglers. Sonoran Gov. Eduardo Bours agreed to improve police communications with U.S. authorities.

In the first nine months of the fiscal year, Tucson officials have surpassed last year's record of 4,559 arrests over migrant smuggling.

And so far this year, in tiny Douglas, Ariz., the Mexican consulate has identified the bodies of five Mexican nationals who died under suspicious circumstances while crossing into the United States, and he is awaiting the identification of another five he presumes were Mexicans as well. There were only seven such deaths last year.

Statewide the picture is equally bleak. Homicides of illegal crossers is up 21% over last year.

Another visible effect of the cross-border crime wave is the flood of drugs into the country.

Anthony J. Coulson, assistant special agent in charge of the DEA in Arizona, said records indicated that cocaine and heroin seizures may end up twice as high as last year. Marijuana seizures are increasing 25%. Nine months into the current fiscal year, he said, his team had already seized more pot than all of last year. "And 2006 was a record year," he said.

In the Tucson sector alone there has been a 71% increase in marijuana seizures over the last fiscal year, with the Border Patrol reporting 648,000 pounds confiscated since October.

In the Phoenix suburb of Scottsdale, Arpaio said, a cartel operative was openly selling heroin to high school students. "He was getting 150 calls a day on his cellphone," the sheriff said.

The DEA believes 80% of the methamphetamine in the United States is coming from labs in Mexico, which were set up after police raids shut down many of the labs in the U.S.

In Dallas, police are dealing with the deaths of 21 high school students from "cheese heroin," a mixture of Mexican heroin and over-the-counter cold medicine. A hit sells for $2 to $5. Several arrests of dealers have been made; now officials are bracing for the coming school season.

"It's a small packet," said Lt. Tom Moorman of the Dallas Police Department. "They can carry it in a pack of gum. Very, very small."

Antonio Oscar "Tony" Garza Jr., the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, has issued repeated notes to the Mexican government. Last year he sent an advisory to American tourists that "drug cartels, aided by corrupt officials [in Mexico], reign unchecked in many towns along our common border."

A House subcommittee on domestic security has investigated the "triple threat" of drug smuggling, illegal border crossings and rising violence, and it found that "very little" passes the border without the cartels' knowledge.

The panel found that cartels send smugglers into the United States fully armored with equipment -- much of it imported to Mexico from the United States -- including high-powered binoculars and encrypted radios, bazookas, military-style grenades, assault rifles and silencers, sniper scopes and bulletproof vests. Some wear fake police uniforms to confuse authorities as well as Mexican bandits who might ambush them.

The panel's report cited numerous recent crimes. In McAllen, Texas, "two smuggled women from Central America were found on the side of a road badly beaten and without clothing. Their captors intimidated the victims by shooting weapons into the walls and ceiling as they were raped." In Laredo, Texas, Webb County sheriff's deputies came upon 56 illegal immigrants locked in a refrigerator trailer; 11 were women, two children. After six hours, "many were near death by the time they were rescued."

It was in Laredo last summer where police encountered Rosalio Reta, then 17, a Houston native who fell under the spell of the Gulf Cartel across the river. Known as Bart, the youth was 13 when he started visiting Mexico.

"They walk across the bridge," said Laredo Det. Robert Garcia, who investigated a murder that involved Reta. "They see all the nightclubs with no age limit. They see the guys their age spending money, throwing money around, paying for everything. They like the lure, the women, the fancy cars. They start moving weapons and guns and pretty soon they start asking for money for hits."

Garcia said Reta told him how he helped break a cartel leader out of a Mexican prison. From there he moved up to become a hit man and returned to Texas behind the wheel of a $70,000 Mercedes Benz, Garcia said.

Then last year a Laredo man, Noe Flores, was killed in front of his home, shot by mistake because the cartel thought Flores was his half-brother.

In a written statement to police, Reta admitted to driving the car with two accomplices. One of them, identified by Reta as Gabriel Cardona, jumped out and "shot two rounds at first," he wrote.

"That was when he fell to the floor and then shot em 13 more rounds and that was when Jesus Gonzales [the other alleged accomplice] started shooting from the rear windows.

"Then we left the sene of the crime and we left the car like 3 blocks away. The work was done for the Gulf Cartel of Mexico."

At trial last month, a witness said Reta and the accomplices were paid a total of $15,000 for the hit. But the case ended abruptly when Reta pleaded guilty in return for a 40-year sentence; he had faced 99 years.

Webb County Judge Joe Lopez told the youth: "It's a young life. Come to terms with your God and your faith, or whatever it may be."

Cardona also pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 80 years. Gonzales was arrested but made bail, and he disappeared back into Mexico.

Reta awaits trial in a second case, involving the ambush slaying in December 2005 of Moises Garcia, shot in his car in a Laredo restaurant parking lot as his pregnant wife and family watched helplessly.
 

virtuoso

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Re: Border violence pushes north
« Reply #1 on: August 19, 2007, 05:50:48 AM »

Hey watch Traffic that to me although it is a fictional film gives a very good insight into the reality of the war on drugs and I could add and meanwhile the border between Mexico and America stays wide open despite this and what does the media do? they simply ignore this ongoing violence. It is not in the interests of big business to show anything like the reality of this wide open border with Mexico because they support a totally open policy of immigrants in order to drive down the wages.
 

Shallow

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Re: Border violence pushes north
« Reply #2 on: August 19, 2007, 07:22:37 AM »
All they need to do is legalize all drugs fully and these drug lords will be in line at the soup kitchen with in a few years. I don't understand why the government wants to ignore a market that will be filled whether it's legal or not and as long as it's not it destroys so many more lives than it would if it was legal.
 

virtuoso

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Re: Border violence pushes north
« Reply #3 on: August 19, 2007, 09:16:21 AM »

Shallow the reason why they don't legalise drugs, is because we all know how the CIA are the major drug dealers, the so called drug barons are just the public face of drug dealing but the fact is that this war drives up the price of drugs and any perceived crack downs lead to a further increase in prices, therefore more profits for the bosses.
 

Shallow

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Re: Border violence pushes north
« Reply #4 on: August 20, 2007, 06:42:59 PM »
I'm just saying that's how you solve it. You'd think it would be obvious to people that it's not morality that keeps it illegal but the money and of course, like welfare, it creates a viable lifestyle for the poor to throw away their lives with in stead of making something of htemselves and becoming intelligent voters (a politicians worst nightmare).
 

gman1er

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Re: Border violence pushes north
« Reply #5 on: August 20, 2007, 06:47:49 PM »
government should just legalize drugs crime would drop alot
 

Bramsterdam (see ya)

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Re: Border violence pushes north
« Reply #6 on: August 21, 2007, 10:03:04 PM »
The war on drugs is one thats lost. However I don't agree about legalizing all drugs. Ah, and Traffic is a very good movie, if not one of my favourites of all time.
 

Shallow

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Re: Border violence pushes north
« Reply #7 on: August 22, 2007, 08:31:21 AM »
However I don't agree about legalizing all drugs.


You don't believe in personal freedom?
 

Don Rizzle

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Re: Border violence pushes north
« Reply #8 on: August 23, 2007, 08:09:52 AM »
legalising all drugs would be political suicide, even legalising weed would be dangerous polically. however i don't think legalisation is the answer, the dutch approach is best when its still illegal but its not an arrestable offense.

iraq would just get annexed by iran


That would be a great solution.  If Iran and the majority of Iraqi's are pleased with it, then why shouldn't they do it?
 

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Re: Border violence pushes north
« Reply #9 on: August 23, 2007, 11:12:28 AM »
However I don't agree about legalizing all drugs.


You don't believe in personal freedom?

People who want to use drugs as it is still do them and nothings stopping them.
 

Shallow

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Re: Border violence pushes north
« Reply #10 on: August 23, 2007, 01:39:22 PM »
However I don't agree about legalizing all drugs.


You don't believe in personal freedom?

People who want to use drugs as it is still do them and nothings stopping them.


Exactly, so what's the point of prohibition in your mind? Do you enjoy the fact that all these lowlife criminals destroy towns and communities all over the world to ensure they get the money they get from drugs when they would all be put out of business in a matter of weeks if it became legal?
 

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Re: Border violence pushes north
« Reply #11 on: August 24, 2007, 12:11:55 AM »
However I don't agree about legalizing all drugs.


You don't believe in personal freedom?

People who want to use drugs as it is still do them and nothings stopping them.


Exactly, so what's the point of prohibition in your mind? Do you enjoy the fact that all these lowlife criminals destroy towns and communities all over the world to ensure they get the money they get from drugs when they would all be put out of business in a matter of weeks if it became legal?

Legalizing it is going to make it easier for all these lowlife criminals to get drugs and do even more stupid shit while high as a kite. Say its legal, then its either going to be cheaper to buy, resulting in more use of it and more shit to deal with, or its going to be higher than on the street and sold by whatever companies or government, resulting in even more mass production by dealers and cultivators. Legalizing drugs is only going to make the world even more full of them, which is not a good idea. You know in Vancouver every 2 weeks they have ambulances or other medical vehicles to go around certain areas of town because of junkies getting their wellfare cheques and blowing them on heroin and other drugs resulting in them overdosing. Its only going to increase that number.
 

Shallow

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Re: Border violence pushes north
« Reply #12 on: August 24, 2007, 08:44:26 AM »
However I don't agree about legalizing all drugs.


You don't believe in personal freedom?

People who want to use drugs as it is still do them and nothings stopping them.


Exactly, so what's the point of prohibition in your mind? Do you enjoy the fact that all these lowlife criminals destroy towns and communities all over the world to ensure they get the money they get from drugs when they would all be put out of business in a matter of weeks if it became legal?

Legalizing it is going to make it easier for all these lowlife criminals to get drugs and do even more stupid shit while high as a kite. Say its legal, then its either going to be cheaper to buy, resulting in more use of it and more shit to deal with, or its going to be higher than on the street and sold by whatever companies or government, resulting in even more mass production by dealers and cultivators. Legalizing drugs is only going to make the world even more full of them, which is not a good idea. You know in Vancouver every 2 weeks they have ambulances or other medical vehicles to go around certain areas of town because of junkies getting their wellfare cheques and blowing them on heroin and other drugs resulting in them overdosing. Its only going to increase that number.


So be it. It's not my right to make sure other people take care of themselves. But here is what I think will happen if it is done this way. No way will the government legalize it with out guidelines, and most companies won't want to touch it right off the bat. The cigarette, liquor, and porn companies will. Most places that sell it will either be required or just want to have rooms where you can use it because using drugs on the street will be illegal. The drugs will be very clean as opposed to the street drugs and lower end drugs like crack may end up being passed on by more extreme now cheaper drugs. Prices will drop you can be sure of it. The current dealers and cultivators will disappear because the big businesses will take over. The street gangs will go broke and guns will now no longer be needed as much and will no longer be easily bought because the street income will go down. The appeal of the easy money street life will be gone. It will be illegal to serve someone that is already high and there will be an abundance of anti-drug and drug awareness programs paid for by the sin tax that will go along with this new industry. Ultimately, and it may take a couple generations, drugs will lose their taboo and be shown as the destructive forces they are and may people will stay away or atleast be reasonable with it. It won't go away ever but it will be as controlled as alcohol and the crime will all but cease to exist.
 

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Re: Border violence pushes north
« Reply #13 on: August 24, 2007, 11:13:50 AM »
Ok some good points but I still disagree with somethings, Alcohol is legal, but people still drive drunk as hell and manage to kill people. Legalizing all drugs is going to add on to that but with people driving high as a kite on heroin instead. I just don't agree, legalizing drugs will end up bringing more drugs everywhere. The only positive on legalizing drugs is for the big companies who sell them. To each his own I guess.
 

Shallow

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Re: Border violence pushes north
« Reply #14 on: August 24, 2007, 04:49:56 PM »
Ok some good points but I still disagree with somethings, Alcohol is legal, but people still drive drunk as hell and manage to kill people. Legalizing all drugs is going to add on to that but with people driving high as a kite on heroin instead. I just don't agree, legalizing drugs will end up bringing more drugs everywhere. The only positive on legalizing drugs is for the big companies who sell them. To each his own I guess.


The other major positive is for black and latino communities all over the country that are destroyed because of the street drug trade. I agree it will lead to more drugs and I agree that people will drive high. Now I don't know what the effects are for a person under the influence of coke or heroin so I'll stop there and will not say it will add to vehicular homicides or not. The bottom line is that drugs would be legal but driving while high would not be, Maybe drug doing rooms where you leave your keys with a supervisor would be appropriate.