Frontera NorteSur
July-August  2002

August 21, 2002
Tijuana Pharmacists Learn about HIV

In a continuing-education class for pharmacists, Remedios Lozada Romero, the coordinator for Isesalud's HIV and sexually-transmitted diseases (STD) program, told those in attendance that they have an important role in fighting the spread of HIV since Tijuana residents often go to them before they go to see a doctor. Isesalud is the Instituto de Servicios de Salud Pública del Estado (State Public Health Services Institute, Isesalud) in Baja California. 

Lozada recommended that pharmacists give people information about STDs when they sell them condoms. When customers come into pharmacies complaining of STD symptoms, Lozada told the pharmacists that they should suggest to customers  that they go see a doctor for a full, confidential examination. 

At the class, Lozada spoke to the representatives from 30 Tijuana pharmacies and pharmacy chains about the number of new HIV cases in the city. So far this year, more than 50 people in Tijuana have been found to carry the virus. In a typical year, 150 to 200 new cases of HIV are discovered in the city, according to Lozada. 

Source: Frontera (Tijuana), August 21, 2002. Article by Luis Adolfo San. 

August 6, 2002
BC Attorney General's Office Wants to Try Minors in Adult System

Javier Salas Espinosa, an assistant attorney general in Baja California, says that the state needs to be able to try people under the age of 18 in adult courts. 

Although Salas did not state what the new age floor should be for trying minors in adult courts, he did say that many fifteen- to seventeen-year old Méxicali youth are repeat offenders and that recidivists' crimes are more serious and are committed with more violence than those of first time offenders. Salas says that 15% of Méxicali minors commit crimes such as robbery, violent robbery, assault, vehicle theft and, among gang members, even murder. 

Lowering the age at which minors can be tried in adult courts is to the personal dislike of Alfredo Buenrostro Cevallos, president of the Public Security Council (Consejo de Seguridad Pública). Buenrostro said that such a change should be debated publicly and that BC law enforcement should first root out corrupt officers. BC law enforcement should also become more efficient, he said. 

Raúl Felipe Ruiz, president of the State Congress' Justice Commission (Comisión de Justicia del Congreso del Estado), said that lowering the age floor has been heavily discussed. He also wondered if the state should not first fund cultural and sports programs to keep youth out of trouble. 

Source: La Crónica, August 6, 2002. Article by Beatríz Limón. 

July 29, 2002
BC to Launch State Preventative Police Force on August 1, 2002

On August 1, 2002, Baja California will have a new division of state law-enforcement responsible for crime prevention, the Policía Estatal Preventativa (State Preventative Police, PEP). The head of the PEP will be Aldo Espinosa, who will report to Bernardo Martínez Aguirre, the secretary of public security. 

Espinosa told the Méxicali newspaper La Crónica that the PEP's functions will not overlap those of other local, state and federal law-enforcement agencies. The PEP's main duties will stem from their collecting information and acting off of it to keep crimes from occurring. 

Based on its intelligence, the PEP will be able to make arrests and perform searches throughout all of BC. In some cases, the new force will use the assistance of the Mexican Army, the federal Attorney General's Office, federal police and/or state police. 

The first group of 35 PEP officers graduated from training on July 26, 2002. In October, 45 more agents will graduate and join the force. By the end of the year, there should be 150 officers with the PEP. 

Although the PEP's main office is in Méxicali in the Centro Cívico, personnel will not have permanent bases but will go where they are needed. 

With a budget equivalent to US$1.4 million, the PEP hopes to have the following by the end of 2002: 

203 long arms
200 pistols
116,000 rounds of ammunition
198 bullet proof vests
321 uniforms
10 patrol units
14 pickups
10 other vehicles

The creation of the PEP was announced in the state's official newspaper on October 31, 2001. Some of its duties are: 

1. Implement policies and programs to prevent crimes;
2. Obtain, analyze and process information that prevents crimes;
3. Intervene and help other law-enforcement agencies with public security matters;
4. Help other agencies in investigations, arrests and the seizure of goods involved in crimes;
5. Make arrests and seizures when a crime is in process and turn over suspects to the proper law-enforcement agency;
6. Collaborate with cities when they request surveillance help;
7. Collaborate with cities to protect people and their belongings at the cities' requests; and 
8. Collaborate with authorities during disasters and times of high risk.

Source: La Crónica (Méxicali), July 24, 2002. Article by Gerardo Franco Ortiz.

July 23, 2002
BC University Filled, Students Look for Other Options

Hundreds of would-be students that scored too low on entrance exams to be admitted to the programs of their choice at the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California in Tijuana, went to the university yesterday, Monday, July 22, 2002, to see what options they might have for next year.  

Starting at 7:00 a.m., students began to line up at UABC offices to speak with university officials. At one office, at 10:30 a.m., where 150 students were waiting, only the eleventh student to arrive was meeting with university employees. In another part of the university, 200 students were waiting in a separate office. 

Many of the students had been put on wait lists after scoring low on entrance exams and yesterday they wanted to find out what their chances were to be admitted to the program of their choice for the next academic year. Other students knew they would never get into the program they most desired and were speaking to officials about other courses of study. 

Interviewed in the Tijuana newspaper Frontera, 19 year old Alejandro Hernández Núñez said he had taken the medical-school entrance exam twice but had failed on both occasions to be admitted to that school. In speaking with a university official, he learned that he might have a chance of making it off the wait list and into the medical program. 

Hernández said that the person he spoke with suggested that he study literature or history but Hernández said he would prefer to wait until February and take the entrance exam for the chemical engineering program.

Like many of those not yet admitted to UABC, Hernández said that he could not afford to study at a private university, especially because he has younger siblings still in school. 

Miriam López did not get into UABC's law school, one of UABC's most sought after programs. If she does not make it into the program from the wait list, where she is number 76, López said she would start working and retake the entrance exam in February. 

If she did not make it into the law school on her second attempt, she said she would begin studying at a private university. However, to do so would be expensive and she would have to work while she was in school, she stated. 

Source: Frontera (Tijuana), July 23, 2002. Article by Zulema Flores.

July 19, 2002
Baja California to Open New Prison, Relieve Over-Crowded Conditions

Baja California currently has 12,788 prison inmates--but the official capacity of its prisons is just 4,411 prisoners. The opening of the new, 328 million peso (approximately US$34 million) prison facility at El Hongo should help relieve these conditions. 

Begun in October, 2001, El Hongo was finished in less than a year and will house 2,385 inmates. State prison officials will begin moving prisoners to the facility sometime next month although the exact date is not being specified because of security concerns.

Bernardo Martínez Aguirre, BC Secretary of Public Security, said that El Hongo marks a new epoch for state law enforcement as it will be BC's first drug-free prison. In order to achieve that status, El Hongo will only accept prisoners that are not drug users. Drug-sensing machines, drug-detecting dogs and prohibitions on the entrance of food, jewelry and other goods will all be in place to help insure that no illegal drugs enter the facility. 

El Hongo is considered by BC officials to be a high-technology facility. Prisoners will wear bracelets with bar codes on them so that their movements can be tracked throughout the facility. Cameras and movement sensors are also incorporated into El Hongo's design. 

Inmates will have access to televisions as long as they use headphones. However, TVs brought to the prison will be disassembled to make sure that they do not contain any dangerous or illegal materials. 

El Hongo also has 72 cells for conjugal visits and 72 cells for highly dangerous prisons. 

Each inmate will be kept at the facility at a cost ranging from 65 to 90 pesos per day (roughly US$6.70 to $9.30). 

Inmates will also be able to work while at El Hongo and can earn money to support themselves and/or their families. 

Source: Frontera (Tijuana), July 19, 2002. Articles by Manuel de Jesús Villegas.

July 11, 2002 
San Diego Teens Get Jail Sentence for Brutal Attack on Mexican Workers in 2000

Four white teenagers were given jail sentences for their July 5, 2000 hate-crime attack on five elderly Mexican workers. Four other youth involved in the violence will be sentenced later. 

In an attack described in more detail at http://www.nmsu.edu/~frontera/sep00/hmrt.html, the Mexican men, who where between 64 and 69 years old at the time of the attack, said they were hunted, beaten and shot for over an hour by a group of young white men. One man received multiple, point-blank, pellet-gun shots to the face and another was shot in the back five times. 

The attack was prosecuted as a hate crime because the young men uttered racial slurs during the event. 

Two young men that were alleged to have led the attack were sentenced to 90 days in a state prison. After that, the judge will reevaluate the case and decide whether the teens should receive more jail time. 

One of the two teens that received time in a state prison, Adam Mitchell Ketsdever, apologized to the victims in court, "I am truly sorry for what I've done and I hope that someday I might make it up to you and your families."

Two other teens were sentenced to 120 and 180 days in a youth camp. Both cried during the hearing and one of them, Morgan Victor Manduley, 17, told the judge that he was trying to make up for his behavior by leaving water for migrants that try to enter US through the desert. 

The teens faced sentences of up to 12 years in prison. 

One of the victims, Anastacio Irigoyen, 71, told the judge, "I am no longer well. My head is no longer well. They left me for dead. They should be punished as adults."

Source: Los Angeles Times, June 29, 2002. Article by Tony Perry.

June 17, 2002
Eight Immigrants Wounded in Shooting Along California Border

A Suburban traveling along the California border and filled with 23 undocumented immigrants was shot at, allegedly by the Mexican Army, according to Border Patrol sources. The Mexican newspaper Reforma also stated that eight of the vehicle's occupants were wounded in the event which took place in the early-morning hours of Friday, June 14, 2002.

According to Reforma, the eight injured immigrants were taken to medical facilities in Calexico and San Diego.

Seventeen of the immigrants were from El Salvador, five were from Mexico and one was from Ecuador. The vehicle's driver was said to have escaped back into Mexico on foot.

Manuel Figueroa, spokesperson for the Border Patrol's El Centro sector, stated that the FBI will investigate the incident.

Source: June 15 & 17, 2002, El Diario. June 16, 2002, Reforma.