Always on guard in Nuevo Laredo
Updated 5/17/2006 11:48 PM ETE-mail
By Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY
NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico — Police Cmdr. Carlos Moreno and a weary squad of local
officers stopped for a quick lunch near the downtown financial district here
one day last week. But no one ate until Officer Adrian Lopez, cradling his
AR-15 rifle, was posted at the cafe door.
In the shadow of the U.S. border, lunch has become a life-threatening
proposition for Nuevo Laredo police. They increasingly are being targeted in
an unprecedented surge of violence between warring drug cartels that has
redefined life here and in Laredo, Texas, just across the muddy Rio Grande.
Two weeks ago, five Nuevo Laredo police officers were wounded when masked
gunmen attacked a seafood restaurant. A few weeks earlier, four Mexican
federal agents were assassinated on a busy downtown street here.
Besides making this one of the deadliest places in North America, such
brazen killings — and the inescapable sense that violence could break out at
any moment — have underscored the challenge the U.S. government faces in
trying to improve border security and limit the flow of illegal immigrants
and drugs into the USA.
The instability in this city of about 330,000 has made the USA increasingly
attractive not just for Mexicans seeking a better life, but also for
marijuana, cocaine and heroin traffickers who have begun to set up safe
houses and makeshift weapons manufacturing sites on the U.S. side of the
border, says Elias Bazan, the top agent in Laredo for the U.S. Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
The chaos in Mexico has "started to spill over here," says Bazan, whose
agency formed an unusual working relationship with Mexican law enforcement
and military authorities last fall to try to curb violence and weapons
trafficking.
As President Bush aims to put up to 6,000 National Guard troops on the
Southwest border to deter illegal immigration, the disorder here — near one
of the USA's busiest entry points — touches virtually every aspect of border
security:
• The battle between the "Gulf" and "Sinaloa" drug cartels is threatening to
disrupt one of the major commerce routes into the United States. The cartels
have sought to piggyback loads of drugs and even illegal immigrants onto
some of the 6,000 to 7,000 trucks that carry a wide range of merchandise
into the United States from Nuevo Laredo each day, says Rick Flores, the
sheriff in Webb County, Texas, where Laredo is the county seat.
• Drug seizures and detentions of illegal immigrants on the U.S. side of the
border are continuing to rise, according to Flores' department and U.S.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Local deputies have seized $6.4 million
worth of narcotics this year, Flores says, up from $4.4 million at the same
time last year.
Meanwhile, arrests of illegal immigrants in the Laredo area are on pace to
top the 75,330 caught in 2005, according to the CBP.
Flores isn't optimistic that Bush's plan to post thousands of National Guard
troops along the border will do much to help authorities overwhelmed by the
flow of immigrants and by increasing concerns about security. "What are they
gonna do when they get here?" he says. "They have no law enforcement
powers."
• Long a destination for tourists from across Texas, the Laredo border area
has seen its popularity decline amid the violence. Convention business is
down 25% this year compared with 2005, and the number of weekend visitors is
off by at least 30%, says Ramon Hernandez of the Convention and Visitors
Bureau in Laredo, a blue-collar city of 203,000.
On the grittier Mexican side of the border, the landmark Victoria restaurant
has closed its doors. Seor Frog's, once a popular hangout for American
visitors, is shuttered, as are many other gift and curiosity shops along
Guerrero Street.
Flores says he no longer travels to the Mexican side, where he has many
relatives. "I fear for my life" in Nuevo Laredo, he says. Drug cartels "have
no respect for law enforcement. They don't care about life."
There have been 110 slayings this year in Nuevo Laredo, a homicide rate far
above those of major U.S. cities and ahead of Nuevo Laredo's record pace of
2005, when there were 176 slayings, Flores says. Laredo has had 10 homicides
this year.
In Nuevo Laredo, "there is a war" going on, city police Lt. Mario Espino
Rodriguez says. "Nobody can control it."
'Deadly Monday' slayings
Guillermo Marquez, Nuevo Laredo's assistant police chief, was meeting with
Laredo Police Chief Agustin Dovalina on the U.S. side of the border two
weeks ago when Marquez's cellphone chirped with an urgent message: Five
Nuevo Laredo officers had been shot during an ambush at the Titanic seafood
restaurant.
Marquez, who was in Laredo on behalf of his underfunded squad to seek
donations of police supplies — body armor, gun belts and uniforms — rushed
back to Mexico. The officers survived the shooting, but it marked an
escalation of violence that included six slayings on May 8, a day the Laredo
Morning Times dubbed "Deadly Monday."
The first slayings that day occurred at a pharmacy near Santo Nio, the
city's landmark Catholic church, and just two blocks from the International
Bridge. Gunmen stormed the pharmacy and killed the 14-year-old son of the
owner and another person, in what Dovalina says was a dispute over local
drug sales involving the cartels.
"These people are ruthless," Dovalina says, adding that violence in Nuevo
Laredo has escalated as the cartels have enlisted violent gang members as
enforcers.
He says the Sinaloa cartel is being aided by Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), a
Central American gang that has a reputation for brutality and is a growing
presence in the USA. The Gulf group has been aided by the Zetas, a
well-armed Mexican militia, Dovalina says.
Beyond a lack of equipment and training in Mexican police units, border
security efforts have been complicated by corruption within Nuevo Laredo's
department, Flores says.
Drug cartels have used cash and intimidation to get protection from local
cops, he says.
Last year, new Nuevo Laredo Police Chief Alejandro Dominguez vowed to fight
corruption. He was assassinated hours after taking office. Dominguez's
successor, Omar Pimental, resigned in March after the entire 800-officer
force was suspended temporarily because of corruption concerns voiced by
Mexico's federal government.
A force of about 300 officers was reinstated this spring while a search for
a permanent chief continues by the city and federal governments. Nuevo
Laredo Mayor Daniel Pea says through a spokesman that an appointment could
take several weeks.
Until then, Cmdr. Moreno and Lt. Espino will try to protect interim Chief
Guillermo Landa and Assistant Chief Marquez with patrols around their homes.
Raids uncover major weaponry
The violence in the Laredo border area has long been confined largely to the
Mexican side, but there are signs that Mexico's problem is increasingly
becoming the United States' problem.
In January, Laredo police and federal agents with Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) and the ATF made a startling discovery when they raided a
local home: a small assembly line for building improvised explosive devices
(IEDs).
Agents recovered two IEDs and materials to build about 33 more, the ICE and
ATF reported. In a separate raid just south of downtown Laredo, ATF agents
seized several machine guns in a home that was used to make automatic
weapons.
The ATF's Bazan says the raids and other evidence have led authorities in
the USA to believe that drug cartel leaders have begun using Laredo as a
safe haven from the fighting on the Mexican side.
Donnie Carter, who as the ATF's top agent in Houston oversees the Justice
Department's project with Mexican authorities, says ATF officials meet with
Mexican law enforcement and military officials each month to discuss ways to
combat drug and weapons trafficking. The effort helped prompt the weapons
raids.
Carter says it's clear that the drug cartels are well funded and well armed.
Because of the widespread corruption on the Mexican side, Bazan says, it is
"difficult to trust anyone" in forming strategies to improve security.
"One thing you'll notice (about shootings in Mexico) is that it seems nobody
is ever arrested," Bazan says. "The level of fear is very serious and very
high."
'People are afraid'
His family's new El Rancho restaurant and bar in north Laredo is doing well,
but Sol Manzilla's thoughts often drift to his family's original El Rancho,
which opened in Nuevo Laredo in 1970 and became a local landmark.
Largely because of the relentless violence, business at the original El
Rancho is down 40% this year, Manzilla says. His family is struggling to
keep it afloat.
"I try to avoid talking about it," Manzilla says, his eyes misting with
tears. "The morale of the people is down. People are afraid to say anything
because they fear they could be targeted."
He says he has seen several businesses that catered to tourism in Nuevo
Laredo close or move to a safer spot on the U.S. side. "I'd like to invite
people to go back," he says. "But how can I?"
Copyright 2006 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.
By Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY
NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico — Police Cmdr. Carlos Moreno and a weary squad of local
officers stopped for a quick lunch near the downtown financial district here
one day last week. But no one ate until Officer Adrian Lopez, cradling his
AR-15 rifle, was posted at the cafe door.
In the shadow of the U.S. border, lunch has become a life-threatening
proposition for Nuevo Laredo police. They increasingly are being targeted in
an unprecedented surge of violence between warring drug cartels that has
redefined life here and in Laredo, Texas, just across the muddy Rio Grande.
Two weeks ago, five Nuevo Laredo police officers were wounded when masked
gunmen attacked a seafood restaurant. A few weeks earlier, four Mexican
federal agents were assassinated on a busy downtown street here.
Besides making this one of the deadliest places in North America, such
brazen killings — and the inescapable sense that violence could break out at
any moment — have underscored the challenge the U.S. government faces in
trying to improve border security and limit the flow of illegal immigrants
and drugs into the USA.
The instability in this city of about 330,000 has made the USA increasingly
attractive not just for Mexicans seeking a better life, but also for
marijuana, cocaine and heroin traffickers who have begun to set up safe
houses and makeshift weapons manufacturing sites on the U.S. side of the
border, says Elias Bazan, the top agent in Laredo for the U.S. Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
The chaos in Mexico has "started to spill over here," says Bazan, whose
agency formed an unusual working relationship with Mexican law enforcement
and military authorities last fall to try to curb violence and weapons
trafficking.
As President Bush aims to put up to 6,000 National Guard troops on the
Southwest border to deter illegal immigration, the disorder here — near one
of the USA's busiest entry points — touches virtually every aspect of border
security:
• The battle between the "Gulf" and "Sinaloa" drug cartels is threatening to
disrupt one of the major commerce routes into the United States. The cartels
have sought to piggyback loads of drugs and even illegal immigrants onto
some of the 6,000 to 7,000 trucks that carry a wide range of merchandise
into the United States from Nuevo Laredo each day, says Rick Flores, the
sheriff in Webb County, Texas, where Laredo is the county seat.
• Drug seizures and detentions of illegal immigrants on the U.S. side of the
border are continuing to rise, according to Flores' department and U.S.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Local deputies have seized $6.4 million
worth of narcotics this year, Flores says, up from $4.4 million at the same
time last year.
Meanwhile, arrests of illegal immigrants in the Laredo area are on pace to
top the 75,330 caught in 2005, according to the CBP.
Flores isn't optimistic that Bush's plan to post thousands of National Guard
troops along the border will do much to help authorities overwhelmed by the
flow of immigrants and by increasing concerns about security. "What are they
gonna do when they get here?" he says. "They have no law enforcement
powers."
• Long a destination for tourists from across Texas, the Laredo border area
has seen its popularity decline amid the violence. Convention business is
down 25% this year compared with 2005, and the number of weekend visitors is
off by at least 30%, says Ramon Hernandez of the Convention and Visitors
Bureau in Laredo, a blue-collar city of 203,000.
On the grittier Mexican side of the border, the landmark Victoria restaurant
has closed its doors. Seor Frog's, once a popular hangout for American
visitors, is shuttered, as are many other gift and curiosity shops along
Guerrero Street.
Flores says he no longer travels to the Mexican side, where he has many
relatives. "I fear for my life" in Nuevo Laredo, he says. Drug cartels "have
no respect for law enforcement. They don't care about life."
There have been 110 slayings this year in Nuevo Laredo, a homicide rate far
above those of major U.S. cities and ahead of Nuevo Laredo's record pace of
2005, when there were 176 slayings, Flores says. Laredo has had 10 homicides
this year.
In Nuevo Laredo, "there is a war" going on, city police Lt. Mario Espino
Rodriguez says. "Nobody can control it."
'Deadly Monday' slayings
Guillermo Marquez, Nuevo Laredo's assistant police chief, was meeting with
Laredo Police Chief Agustin Dovalina on the U.S. side of the border two
weeks ago when Marquez's cellphone chirped with an urgent message: Five
Nuevo Laredo officers had been shot during an ambush at the Titanic seafood
restaurant.
Marquez, who was in Laredo on behalf of his underfunded squad to seek
donations of police supplies — body armor, gun belts and uniforms — rushed
back to Mexico. The officers survived the shooting, but it marked an
escalation of violence that included six slayings on May 8, a day the Laredo
Morning Times dubbed "Deadly Monday."
The first slayings that day occurred at a pharmacy near Santo Nio, the
city's landmark Catholic church, and just two blocks from the International
Bridge. Gunmen stormed the pharmacy and killed the 14-year-old son of the
owner and another person, in what Dovalina says was a dispute over local
drug sales involving the cartels.
"These people are ruthless," Dovalina says, adding that violence in Nuevo
Laredo has escalated as the cartels have enlisted violent gang members as
enforcers.
He says the Sinaloa cartel is being aided by Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), a
Central American gang that has a reputation for brutality and is a growing
presence in the USA. The Gulf group has been aided by the Zetas, a
well-armed Mexican militia, Dovalina says.
Beyond a lack of equipment and training in Mexican police units, border
security efforts have been complicated by corruption within Nuevo Laredo's
department, Flores says.
Drug cartels have used cash and intimidation to get protection from local
cops, he says.
Last year, new Nuevo Laredo Police Chief Alejandro Dominguez vowed to fight
corruption. He was assassinated hours after taking office. Dominguez's
successor, Omar Pimental, resigned in March after the entire 800-officer
force was suspended temporarily because of corruption concerns voiced by
Mexico's federal government.
A force of about 300 officers was reinstated this spring while a search for
a permanent chief continues by the city and federal governments. Nuevo
Laredo Mayor Daniel Pea says through a spokesman that an appointment could
take several weeks.
Until then, Cmdr. Moreno and Lt. Espino will try to protect interim Chief
Guillermo Landa and Assistant Chief Marquez with patrols around their homes.
Raids uncover major weaponry
The violence in the Laredo border area has long been confined largely to the
Mexican side, but there are signs that Mexico's problem is increasingly
becoming the United States' problem.
In January, Laredo police and federal agents with Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) and the ATF made a startling discovery when they raided a
local home: a small assembly line for building improvised explosive devices
(IEDs).
Agents recovered two IEDs and materials to build about 33 more, the ICE and
ATF reported. In a separate raid just south of downtown Laredo, ATF agents
seized several machine guns in a home that was used to make automatic
weapons.
The ATF's Bazan says the raids and other evidence have led authorities in
the USA to believe that drug cartel leaders have begun using Laredo as a
safe haven from the fighting on the Mexican side.
Donnie Carter, who as the ATF's top agent in Houston oversees the Justice
Department's project with Mexican authorities, says ATF officials meet with
Mexican law enforcement and military officials each month to discuss ways to
combat drug and weapons trafficking. The effort helped prompt the weapons
raids.
Carter says it's clear that the drug cartels are well funded and well armed.
Because of the widespread corruption on the Mexican side, Bazan says, it is
"difficult to trust anyone" in forming strategies to improve security.
"One thing you'll notice (about shootings in Mexico) is that it seems nobody
is ever arrested," Bazan says. "The level of fear is very serious and very
high."
'People are afraid'
His family's new El Rancho restaurant and bar in north Laredo is doing well,
but Sol Manzilla's thoughts often drift to his family's original El Rancho,
which opened in Nuevo Laredo in 1970 and became a local landmark.
Largely because of the relentless violence, business at the original El
Rancho is down 40% this year, Manzilla says. His family is struggling to
keep it afloat.
"I try to avoid talking about it," Manzilla says, his eyes misting with
tears. "The morale of the people is down. People are afraid to say anything
because they fear they could be targeted."
He says he has seen several businesses that catered to tourism in Nuevo
Laredo close or move to a safer spot on the U.S. side. "I'd like to invite
people to go back," he says. "But how can I?"
Copyright 2006 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.
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