JUDICIAL WATCH
Whispers from the Border
Last Updated: Thu, 09/24/2009 - 2:03pm
It is merely an illusion. The river and the fence do not provide any special protection. The Rio Grande and the segments of border fencing along the U.S.-Mexican border do not deflect drug cartel violence. Reports of violence in the United States are increasing, and there are reports and statistics to prove it. Politicos engage in wishful thinking – hoping the full force of the violence stays south of the border. They only concede that there may be a potential escalation in violence at some point in the future. In border towns, however, whispers are about current violence.
Judicial Watch asked for a sampling of police crime reports along the border, focusing primarily on Arizona. Arizona was our focal point because of the use of its freeways and cities for smugglers (Please see our “Drop House Map”). The police reports clearly do not distinguish crime by correlation to narco-terrorism. The Yuma Sheriff County’s Office provided incident summaries showing roughly 72 incidents in 2008 that are either kidnapping, homicide or missing persons. The number is significant, but without gaining direct access to these law enforcement records, it is unclear whether these crimes are connected with drug trafficking and cartels. We also reviewed incident reporting from the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office and the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office. The Deputy Reports from the Santa Cruz Sheriff, located in Nogales, AZ (or “Nogadishu” as some Border Patrol agents refer to it, with a rhetorical tip-of-the-hat to the war-torn Somali capitol) detail the victim’s name, the date, location, and a brief summary of the incidents. Many of these incidents detail exploitation of illegal aliens crossing the border. The illegal aliens’ vulnerability to criminal predators resulted in nearly $10,000 of stolen property per year that has been recorded in one single county. No one guesses at the amount that goes unreported. Perhaps, this value would appear to be insignificant, but the easy money could lead to increased criminal activity and bring more petty and serious criminals into the area as it did with smuggling. (Recall that smuggling was a “mom and pop” operation until cartels realized that the benefits outweighed the risks and they could successfully expand and diversify their operations).
Judicial Watch also sought medical records of violent deaths from County Medical Examiners (ME) along the border. The MEs seemed reticent to provide the sort of data that would lead to a thoughtful analysis of violent deaths associated with criminal activity along the border. Cochise County Medical Examiner informed Judicial Watch that “Every single case would have to be pulled to determine [the] exact place of death in the county” and that “homicide cases are not releasable by [them].” Judicial Watch withdrew its request from Pima Medical Examiner after being informed that they have no way of determining whether the homicides are drug related. Fully exploring the circumstances and conditions of these deadly border violence cases remains an open investigative lead for Judicial Watch.
We know from our previous border investigations that many violent border crimes go unreported. Cartels are infamous for retribution. Keeping silent about one murder may prevent the death of family members back in Mexico. At some point, common sense also needs to be part of the evaluation of border crime rather than statistics alone. With just a thin muddy river separating two cities as is the case between Juarez and El Paso, is it plausible that one city has a 1000 murders while the other has only 13?1 It is misleading to claim that cartel violence has not spread to the United States-- the reports and statistics are not maintained to account for this correlation and crime that is surrounded by lethal deterrence to talking is likely to go unreported. The whisperings tell us that the crime has already crossed the border and it is only time until the statistics catch up.
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