Frontera NorteSur July-August 2002

Internet Cameras to Be Placed in BC State Police Stations and Prisons

Cameras have already been installed in two Baja California state police offices in Méxicali and more will be installed around the state within two to three months, according to Antonio Martínez Luna, State Attorney General. The closed circuit system, which will also be extended into the state's prisons, is being integrated into BC law enforcement to ensure citizens' rights and governmental transparency.

In the first stage of the new program, an internet site will be established that will allow the lawyers' bar, nongovernmental agencies and human rights groups to view operations inside police stations and prisons. Later, the public will be able to view the site as well.

Martínez also stated that the camera system will allow the public to see the speed with which people are treated when they go to the state police. In case of slow downs in service, the cameras will let officials know when more staff is needed.

In a separate article from Tijuana's Frontera newspaper (no relation to FNS), the head of BC's human rights office, Raúl Ramírez Baena, said that he views the camera project positively in that it will allow the public to see the conditions in which people are held at state law enforcement buildings.

Ramírez pointed out two cases in which two prisoners died under suspicious circumstances in 1999 and 2001. In the first case, recommendations were made to install cameras in police stations. In the second case, an arrest warrant was issued for three agents that were allegedly involved in the death of an accused bank robber.

However, Ramírez does have some reservations about the project. Citing privacy issues and safety concerns, he believes that the government should be careful as to who is allowed to see the images coming from the cameras.

Source: Frontera (Tijuana), June 6, 2002. Articles by Ernesto Alvarez.

Baja California Has Third-Highest Crime Rate in Mexico

After Mexico City and Morelos, Baja California has the third-highest level of crime in Mexico, according to a new report by the Instituto Ciudadano de Estudios sobre la Inseguridad (Citizens' Institute for the Study of Crime, Icesi).

Other findings show that:

4,200,000 Mexicans were crime victims in 2001;

2,972,230 of these victims did not report the crimes committed against them;

44% of crimes involve violence;

47% of Mexicans feel unsafe in their homes;

23% of Mexicans have changed their activities or habits because of crime; and

44% of crime victims suffered some sort of violence while the crime was committed.

Icesi's findings are based on interviews and are not meant to contradict official government crime figures but are instead seen as complimenting them, according to Luis de la Barreda, Icesi's president. Icesi interviewed 1,100 people in every Mexican state and Mexico City between March 2 and March 24, 2002.

Nationally, 66% of victims did not report the crimes committed against them. BC citizens reported 50% of crimes, the third-highest reporting rate in the nation after Sonora and Baja California Sur.

Fifty percent of Mexicans said that they did not report a crime because of long, difficult crime report forms that they would have to complete. Nineteen percent said that they did not file crime reports because they do not trust law-enforcement officials. Other victims said they did not report crimes because they lacked evidence or the crime did not seem important to them.

In cases where crime reports were filed, 45% were not acted upon, 23% were denied investigations, 17% were being processed, 11% resulted in the capture of suspects and 2% resulted in the return of stolen goods.

Forty-four percent of crimes involved violence or the threat of violence. In these cases, 44% of people were threatened with a handgun, 25% with a knife, 20% verbally, 18% with a physical beating, 3% with a tube or similar object and 1% with a rifle or assault rifle.

Barreda said that Icesi will conduct the same interviews on a regular basis, but no more than twice a year, as way in which to get points of reference for crime in Mexico. He also stated that Icesi wants to work with government authorities to get anti-crime policies and statistics that are good and will work to combat crime.

Source: La Crónica (Méxicali), May 29, 2002. Article by Agustín Pérez and Carmen Rangel.

Second Prisoner Dies while in Custody of Federal Police in Nuevo León

A little more than a month after a suspect was allegedly tortured and killed by asphyxiation while being held by federal police in San Nicolas, Nuevo León, a second detained man was shot and killed at the same office in the early morning hours of June 17, 2002.  

According to the Reynosa newspaper El Mañana, Leonardo Garnica Adame, the head of the Ministerio Público Federal office where the death occurred, told local authorities that Roberto Carlos Mendoza, age 23, was shot and killed by three men that broke into the federal police building. Garnica also stated that Mendoza was being held in the cells of the Agencia Federal de Investigaciones. 

Another agent with the Ministerio Público Federal, Eduardo Garnica Dávila, also told local officials that Mendoza was killed by three men that stormed the building and went to the second floor to get at the victim. El Mañana reported that Garnica Dávila did not specify what the two federal agents on duty, César Alberto Meléndez Pérez and Alejandro Israel Huerta Rivera, did when the three alleged assailants entered Mendoza's cell.

Nuevo León state police that are currently investigating the death have a different version of events from those presented by their federal counterparts. El Mañana writes that, according to state police sources, Mendoza was shot by federal agent Huerta when Mendoza went for Huerta's gun during what the newspaper called a "heavy interrogation."

Mendoza was arrested on Sunday, June 16, 2002 for carrying an amount of marijuana sufficient to make eight marijuana cigarettes. 

Nuevo León Governor Fernando Canales has demanded an in-depth investigation of the killing. 

Luis del Toro, head of the Federal Attorney General's Office in the state, promised to resolve the case. Del Toro has yet to make an official declaration about the killing.

Source: El Mañana (Reynosa), June 18, 2002. 

One Femicide Case Closed, Another Opened in Ciudad Juárez

Verónica Isela Alvarado Torres, age 20, was arrested on May 27, 2002 for the mid-May murder of her thirteen-year old sister, Zuly Olivia Alvarado Torres.

Zuly Alvarado's body was found in a field in the Juárez Valley where the bodies of other young rape-murder victims have been found in previous years. However, police investigators said from the beginning that Zuly Alvarado had not been raped and that they did not consider her to be one of the city's serial-killing victims.

Police also said that their initial investigation was into Alvarado's family and noted that her mother had been previously arrested for prostituting some of her daughters, including Zuly Alvarado.

It was also noted by police that although the girl had been missing for more than a week before her body was found, her family had not reported her absence to police.

According to the Cd. Juárez newspaper El Diario, Verónica Alvarado told a judge that she went out for a walk with her sister and tried to give her some advice. The two began arguing and her younger sister hit her, she said. Verónica Alvarado then said that she strangled her sister.

State police told El Diario that Verónica Alvarado changed her story in front of the judge. According to police, Verónica Alvarado told them that the two were fighting over a 37-year old man.

Earlier in the investigation, Verónica Alvarado told police that this man was her sister's killer but police questioned him and determined that he was not responsible for the girl's death, a police source said.

Body Found in City Center

The body of an unidentified, 25-year old woman was found in downtown Cd. Juárez in the Plaza Cervantina in the early morning hours of June 2, 2002. The woman had been raped and died from a broken neck. Police are not sure if the victim was raped and killed in the Plaza or elsewhere.

Police were alerted to the crime at 5:25 a.m. on Sunday morning by an unidentified prostitute that had gone through the plaza and heard someone being beaten. She then saw what appeared to be two people having sexual relations and called police.

Police are investigating the case and said that just hours prior to finding the body, they had gone through plaza and arrested more than 20 people for drug and other crimes.

Source: El Diario, May 28 & June 3, 2002. Articles by Javier Saucedo Alcalá and Armando Rodríguez, respectively.

Fifty-five Murders in 2002 along the Tamaulipas Border with Texas

Since the beginning of 2002, fifty-five people have been murdered along the Mexican-side of the Tamaulipas border, according to Arturo Solís Gómez of the Centro de Estudios Fronterizos y de Promoción de los Derechos Humanos (Center for Border Studies and the Promotion of Human Rights, Cefprodhac). Approximately 90% of the killings have been in the three major border cities of Nuevo Laredo, Reynosa and Matamoros.

Solís stated that Nuevo Laredo had the highest number of murders, 23, of any city along the Tamaulipas border. Reynosa had 19 killings, Matamoros 9, Miguel Alemán 3 and Río Bravo and Camargo, one each. Solís' figures come from a count of murders reported in the Tamaulipas press.

At least 50 of the murder victims were identified by family or friends, said Solís. The other five victims were buried in a common grave.

By comparison, nearly 300 people are buried annually in Tijuana's common grave (see FNS's December, 2001 story http://www.nmsu.edu/~frontera/dec01/Tijuananews.html).

Thirty of those murdered were killed by firearms, 16 by physical beatings and the remaining 9 by other means.

Solís also stated that according to police investigations, 16 of Nuevo Laredo's 23 murders were drug related. In Reynosa, three murders were related to narcotrafficking as was one murder in Miguel Alemán and one murder in Río Bravo.

Thirty-five of the 55 murders have not yet been resolved, according to Solís. Fourteen people have been arrested in 13 cases and 8 other people are wanted in relation to 6 other murders.

Source: El Diario de Nuevo Laredo, June 10, 2002.

Mexico's World Cup Loss Leads to Juárez Violence on International Bridge

Disappointed by Mexico's World Cup defeat to the US national team, drunken Ciudad Juárez soccer fans turned violent as they rallied around that city's giant Mexican flag known as the "macrobandera." 

A photographer for the El Paso Times told the Cd. Juárez newspaper El Diario that people  assembled at the flag began pushing him either because he was taking photos and/or because they thought him to be a US citizen. The photographer also commented that the rioters were all very drunk.

A short time later, in the early hours of Monday, June 17, the enraged fans left the area of the macrobandera and headed to the Cordoba international bridge that connects El Paso and Ciudad Juárez. There they threw rocks at cars that were waiting to enter the US. At least one woman was taken to the hospital for her injuries and other people were treated by emergency workers after they had crossed into El Paso. Dozens of cars were also damaged by the rock throwing.

In response to the soccer-related violence, an INS official said that she ordered staff to open more lanes on the bridge. This allowed cars to proceed more quickly into the US and out of danger from the rioters.

Source: El Diario, June 18, 2002. Article by Javier Saucedo & Julián Reséndiz.