AZMEX UPDATE 2 5-1-06
Thursday, January 5, 2006
Bandits increase border violence
A Pima County deputy calls it an epidemic
CLAUDINE LoMONACO
Tucson Citizen
Bandits armed with guns easily purchased in the United States are making the border more dangerous for illegal immigrants, law enforcement agents and those who live, work or visit along the border.
Reports of attacks began coming across Mitch Ellis' desk a year ago when he became manager of Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge, a rugged expanse of mesquite- and prickly pear-studded desert about 60 miles southwest of Tucson along the Arizona-Mexico border.
Just a couple of paragraphs long, they document stories of women raped by masked gunmen and men wounded or killed trying to protect the little money they had.
The crimes have become common here since the U.S. crackdown on urban areas along the border pushed illegal immigrants, and drew the bandits, or bajadores, who prey on them, into Arizona's deserts. The bandits add another layer of criminal activity to the drug and human smuggling along the border.
Five people were shot in bandit-related attacks on or near the refuge during November alone. Ellis worries that if bandits are left unchecked, it might be a matter of time or circumstance before they harm his staff or the public.
Deputy Dawn Barkman, a spokeswoman for the Pima County Sheriff's Department, which investigates many of the incidents, called the bandit attacks an "epidemic."
The department recorded 39 incidents - accounting for hundreds of individual victims - in 2005, up from 31 in 2004.
But the numbers barely scratch the surface, said sheriff's Sgt. Gary Anderson, who is in charge of investigating assaults for the department.
"The victims tell us that they've already been assaulted two or three times before the last incident," he said.
Most attacks aren't reported, and illegal immigrants continue on their way.
Rangers on the refuge say armed robbery is a daily occurrence.
Ellis protects his employees by restricting their movements. He has forbidden biologists from entering highly trafficked areas without armed rangers, and rangers no longer patrol at night unless accompanied by other rangers.
Long-time ranger and National Guard member Todd Kyle takes no risks. Each morning at dawn, he pulls on the same bulletproof vest that protected him during his tour of duty in Iraq. He returned home early last year. He brought back an extra vest for visitors who accompany him on patrols.
"I won't go out there without one, so why should I let someone else?" he asked.
Adam Blankenbaker hunts white-tailed deer and javelina on the refuge with his bow and arrow several times a year. He started carrying a 9 mm handgun last year after he found an illegal immigrant trying to steal his truck. It's against Game & Fish regulations to carry a gun during archery hunts, but it's become common among hunters. They have little choice, he said.
"If I walk around a corner down in a wash and next thing you know there's 10 guys there with assault weapons and I've got my bow and arrow," he said, "my bow's not going to do me any good."
His father, Dave Blankenbaker, has reduced his hunting on the refuge to a few days a year because of the increased immigrant and U.S. Border Patrol presence. The recent shootings have made him reconsider hunting here at all.
Thursday, January 5, 2006
A year ago, the refuge began distributing fliers warning its estimated 35,000 annual visitors to "stay alert" for illegal activity, high-speed chases, and large, potentially armed groups of illegal immigrants or drug smugglers.
The flier is already outdated, said refuge employee Kathie Senter. The shootings indicate that the violence is getting worse, she said, "so we're revising it. It isn't strongly worded enough."
Of the five people shot in November, two died. Four were illegal immigrants. One was a bandit killed in a shootout between two gangs trying to rob the same group
Easy escape
To evade capture, bandits typically operate within a few miles of either side of the border.
If the bandits are in Arizona and American law enforcement officers show up, they dash across the barbed-wire fence into Mexico, said Enrique Enriquez Palafox, Nogales coordinator of Grupos Beta, Mexico's official immigrant aid organization. If they're south of the border and Mexican authorities appear, they dart into the United States, he said.
Enriquez came across a gang holding up a large group while patrolling the border west of Nogales.
They took off as soon as they saw his bright orange Grupos Beta uniform but he managed to nab one just feet from escaping into the United States.
"As soon as I grabbed his leg, his friends started shooting at me," said Enriquez, as he leaned over to undo the laces of his boot. He rolled up his pant leg to reveal an 18-inch scar that runs the length of his right calf.
"I took five bullets," he said.
It took him a year to recover.
Robbing the poor
A couple of miles south of the refuge, along the road to Altar, Son., dozens of men, women and children clustered nervously at the "brickyard," an isolated, dusty outpost of crumbling brick structures and abandoned vans. It's the last stopping point before they fan out across the desert.
Francisco Jurado leaned against a beat-up pickup, waiting his turn to cross.
He's been assaulted at gunpoint four times in the last three years, he said. The first time, he lost $100. He'd saved the money to pay for his journey.
"Now I know better," the 41-year old father of five from Michoacan said, digging into the pocket of his jeans. He pulled out his hand to show 23 pesos, just over $2. "This is all I carry with me now. Just enough to survive."
Eighteen-year-old Jose Mera Alvarez lost $150, but a friend of his fared worse. Bandits took his brand-new tennis shoes, leaving him to walk through the desert barefoot.
"They'll take your food and water, everything, because they live in the mountains," Jurado said, gesturing north. "They take it to survive and leave you nothing."
This in a land where a couple of hours without water in the summer can mean death.
Jurado has been crossing into the United States since 1976 to work construction jobs in Washington state.
He used to cross in California, largely without incident. The attacks began when he started crossing in Arizona three years ago to avoid the buildup in Tijuana, he said.
The same desolation that attracts illegal immigrants lures bandits: a steady stream of victims, often carrying what amounts to their life savings, and little chance of getting caught.
Enriquez estimates that 85 percent to 90 percent of the immigrants that show up at his office in Nogales have been assaulted.
They come penniless, looking for a hot meal, a place to stay or a ticket home.
Some bear black eyes or broken ribs from attacks.
Immigrants try to hide the money as best they can. They sew it into the seams of their jeans, caps and belts, or bury it in jars of mayonnaise.
It's of little use, Enriquez said. "The bandits know all the hiding places."
If immigrants don't hand over their money immediately, the bandits will often beat and strip search them. It can be especially traumatic for women, he said.
"They'll grope their breasts," he said, "and even search their private parts."
Rape is common, he said. Bandits and smugglers have set up old mattresses in an area known as "Migrant's Canyon" for that purpose, he said.
It often seems the smugglers are in cahoots with bandits.
"They never touch the smugglers," said Francisco Garcia, who runs an immigrant shelter in Altar, "even though they carry the most money."
Or it could be that the bandits simply leave the smugglers alone.
The smugglers bring the bandits business, he said, "and you don't kill the goose that lays the golden egg."
Challenge to law enforcement
U.S. law enforcement and the Border Patrol have had little luck apprehending bandits.
U.S. Border Patrol agent Jim Hawkins said illegal immigrants are reluctant to make official reports though they regularly tell Border Patrol agents about the attacks when they've been apprehended.
They usually don't know where the attacks occurred - even on which side of the border - said sheriff's Sgt. Anderson.
The victims also get deported soon after they report the crimes and probably couldn't identify the masked bandits even if they could stick around to help prosecute, he said.
Mexican police have fared only slightly better.
Cracking down on the bandits around Buenos Aires, where most bandit activity in Pima County is focused, falls largely on the five-man police department of the tiny Mexican town of Sasabe, population 3,000, just south of Sasabe, Ariz.
Police Officer Alan Rodriguez flips through a album with photos of the bandits they've apprehended along with their weapons.
Most of the men the officers captured are small-time criminals, he said.
The larger groups are well-organized gangs from the Mexican state of Sinaloa, just south of Sonora.
"You can tell by their accent," he said.
In mid-November, Rodriguez and three other officers dressed up like illegal immigrants to go after a gang hiding out in a sandy wash on the Mexican side of the border.
As soon as they approached, seven masked men with automatic weapons jumped out at the officers. The officers pulled out their guns and started to shoot. But the bandits got away. None of the officers was hurt.
"We thought they'd have a knife or two," he said. "We were overpowered."
Attacks go unnoticed
Ellis and Anderson worry that the crimes have received little attention. Ellis speculates it's because the victims are illegal immigrants.
"If these were Americans getting killed and robbed . . . people would care," he said.
The latest shooting near the refuge occurred in late November. The Sheriff's Department heard about it Thanksgiving Day when a Border Patrol agent found a body 16 miles north of the border along State Route 286.
Detectives had little to go on until Nov. 27 when agents found two men - shot, but alive - on the refuge miles away from each other. One had set a brush fire to attract help and had to be transported by helicopter. A detective noticed that one man had the same last name as the man whose body was found on Thanksgiving.
It turned out they were brothers who'd planned to find work in the United States.
They'd been walking with a large group the day before Thanksgiving when bandits started yelling at them and began to shoot. The group scattered. "There might be other victims out there," said sheriff's Sgt. Brad Foust. "We just don't know."
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