Tijuana, Part 4
It is unfortunate but Sr. Federico Benitez Lopez is not the only
Tijuana Police Chief to quite spontaneously depart to immortality.
Three other Tijuana police chiefs have been murdered: Arturo Ochoa
Palacios, Isaac Sanchez Perez, and Alfredo de la Torre Márquez.
Then too, the former commander of the federal
police force in Tijuana, is under investigation in the murder
of State Prosecutor Hodin Armando Gutierrez Rico who was accidentally
shot 150 times while standing in front of his house, and then
tragically, and certainly accidentally, run over by a
large truck.
Yes, and the former commander of the federal
police, Rodolfo Garcia Gaxiola, has been under a cloud of suspicion
for possibly having whacked Sr. Gutierrez because he was planning
to arrest Sr. Gaxiola in connection with the murder of the Tijuana
police chief, Jose Federico Benitez Lopez. It seems that the now
very dead police chief had turned down a $100,000 bribe from the
drug traffickers sometime just before he expired. All of this
would make a good Daytime TV Soap but the cost of transfusions
and caskets might make it too pricey to videotape.
Cali, Columbia, may be the world’s center
of drug violence with an average of 1,000 dead per year, but Tijuana
is doing its part to compete.
Tijuana can be an exciting tourist destination,
with more than 40 dead right on city streets in one 30 day period:
Mesa de Otay (16 dead), La Mesa (14 dead), and downtown Tijuana
(11 dead).
American tourists visiting Tijuana do face a
good chance of being in the middle of one of these events and
really having something worth talking about back in Omaha. Collecting
smoke stained bullet casings off the sidewalk of Avenida Revolucion
might make a good show at coffee with the girls.
Not to worry. The city has installed scores
of live video cameras to help save tourists those action packed
moments for posterity.
Tourists should remain alert. There are several
police stations in Tijuana and even one right at the San Ysidro
Port of Entry (POE). Certainly, the one at the POE should be the
most secure and the most carefully watched. But it was here at
the POE police station that an American
women was raped by Tijuana Police. The husband and his nine
year old son were taken to an ATM kiosk to get money for the bribe
while the wife was subjected to extreme “duress”.
While bad, it can get worse. Yes, you can wind
up very dead
in a police station.
