rdrrm8e - 12-14-2007 at 01:51 PM
This was front page news in today's Los Angeles Times. Seems to be more and more attention paid to the problems near the border.
It's interesting to note that assaults on BP ocifers is up 5 times what it was just 1 year ago!
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-pepper14dec14,1,4542...
By Richard Marosi, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
December 14, 2007
TIJUANA -- In an escalation of clashes between U.S. Border Patrol agents and rock-throwing smugglers, agents have begun launching pepper spray and
tear gas into densely populated Mexican border neighborhoods, according to witnesses, Mexican authorities and human rights groups.
The more aggressive approach reflects the tense climate in this city's most notorious smuggling neighborhood, Colonia Libertad, where U.S. agents say
they have had to counter human traffickers' increasingly aggressive tactics by ramping up their own use of force.
Agents have used pepper spray in the past, but usually aimed directly at the smugglers. The new tactics, which saturate large areas, have forced
dozens of temporary evacuations and sent some residents to hospitals, according to witnesses.
Border Patrol officials say tear gas and pepper spray rarely cause serious injury or damage. They say that they use them against assailants trying to
divert attention from border crossers by pelting agents, and that residents are not targeted.
Since Oct. 1, the Border Patrol has counted 90 assaults against agents in the San Diego area, five times as many as during the same period a year ago.
Agents have suffered serious head injuries, officials say.
The acting Mexican consul general in San Diego, Ricardo Pineda, has met with Border Patrol officials to protest the aggressive use of tear gas and
pepper spray, said Alberto Lozano, the consular spokesman.
"We told them the Mexican government cannot tolerate having Mexican nationals hit with these kind of devices on Mexican soil by U.S. authorities,
regardless of the reason," Lozano said.
Residents of the area's hillside shanties and muddy streets say the Border Patrol's measures neglect their welfare. Some agents, they say, show
compassion, even apologizing for the tactics. But others are defiant and continue saturating areas despite their pleas.
"I said to the agent, 'Put yourself in my place. I have two children,' " said Robis Guadalupe Argumeo, who added that her home has been gassed three
times since August, most recently after a verbal exchange with an agent Saturday. "He said, 'I'm the policeman of the world. No one can touch me.' "
The agent, Argumeo said, was peering over the border fence pointing his pepper-spray launcher at her house. She said that she told him, "But this
isn't Iraq, this is Mexico" but that he continued firing into the neighborhood.
The clashes are taking place east of the San Ysidro port of entry along a two-mile stretch of border where Colonia Libertad, one of Tijuana's most
densely populated neighborhoods, pushes up against the frontier.
This was once a heavily trampled immigrant-smuggling corridor where hundreds crossed nightly, but trafficking slowed considerably a decade ago when
U.S. authorities erected two layers of fencing.
In recent months, however, illegal crossings and assaults have increased dramatically, agents say. Apprehensions of illegal immigrants are up 7% this
year in the San Diego area, the only area on the Southwest border that showed an increase from last year.
The situation has deteriorated to the point that authorities are considering whether to add barbed wire to fencing along certain areas bordering
Colonia Libertad, an option avoided in the past because of the negative symbolism.
Agents say smugglers -- by wearing cardboard shields or heavy jackets to deflect the projectiles -- long ago adapted to the original tactic of
shooting pepper balls directly at them. The agents say the pepper balls, which explode on impact, don't seem to affect some of the hardened smugglers.
Using larger quantities of pepper spray and tear gas is more likely to disrupt their operations and de-escalate violence, agents say.
Smugglers throw rocks and other objects as one way to give immigrants time to scale the fences and disappear. Agents say the attacks are highly
coordinated.
Two years ago an agent fatally shot a rock thrower in Colonia Libertad, prompting protests from the Mexican government. Border Patrol officials say
using nonlethal weapons is the best way to avoid deadly outcomes.
"It's either that or you allow those people to assault our agents at an astronomical level and somebody gets killed," said Agent Richard Smith, a
Border Patrol spokesman. "The alien-and drug-smuggling organizations should be ashamed for using innocent people as shields. It just goes to show they
prioritize profit over human safety."
Some Mexican residents sympathize with the U.S. agents. Carmen Lopez, 63, scolds smugglers who climb onto her tar-paper roof to get a better view of
Border Patrol activity. "The smugglers tell me, 'We're just trying to make a living like anyone else,' " she said.
Hot Pepper
MrBillM - 12-14-2007 at 03:32 PM
I read this article at Breakfast.
It sounds like the TJ residents need to get control of their neighborhood. As long as they and the authorities allow illegal assaults to occur on a
daily (or nightly) basis, they're going to eat Pepper.
That's life. The agents need to protect their own.
Bajajack - 12-14-2007 at 03:50 PM
All the residents along the border fence should just buy some gas mask's and shut up since they are the ones who are profiting from renting their
property and yard's to the smuggler's, coyote's and jumper's.
If the BP opened the gate they'ed all be screaming from their lose of business.
ELINVESTIG8R - 12-14-2007 at 03:54 PM
The other day I read in one of the local on-line Tijuana newspapers that the local Tijuana Human Rights Watch is investigating three or four instances
where tear gas came over the border and wafted into the residential areas. The residents were not amused.
[Edited on 12-14-2007 by ELINVESTI8]
vandy - 12-15-2007 at 06:40 AM
I was in a restaurant in San Jose Viejo when a newbie chef took a large plate of chopped jalapenos and threw them on a smoking hot griddle covered in
oil.
It may have been done for my benefit (I was the only gringo there) but both cooks and the 10 other patrons had to run outside with me. tears streaming
from our faces and coughing and retching.
I can see how having that drift into your neighborhood would suck.
Bajafun777 - 12-15-2007 at 09:53 PM
Well, I guess they have a pepper spray smell problem from the U.S.A. and we have a sewer drift and smell problem from Mexico. Oh well, I guess it all
works out in the "wash" so to speak. Think I would rather have the Pepper Smell. Later----------------bajafun777
A great new use for....
Mexray - 12-15-2007 at 10:48 PM
...imported Mexican Peppers!
bajadedom - 12-16-2007 at 05:08 PM
A fence a mile north of the Colonia would put a few Americans, a few businesses and the road to the Otay crosssing on the wrong side of the
fence......not a feasible idea here..
[Edited on 12-17-2007 by bajadedom]
Listening to Grover
MrBillM - 12-18-2007 at 09:35 AM
Apparently the U.S. Government has heard the Grover Word.
A Front page article in the Los Angeles Times discusses a plan to build the border fence inland from the Rio Grande in Texas. To do so, of course,
means that they will be condemning property owned by some Mexican descendents since the land was still Spanish.
In this case those residents are unhappy that the fence isn't being built ON the Border.
You just can't keep everybody happy. But, at least, Grover will be.
Bajajack - 12-18-2007 at 11:54 AM
Well as of now they dont have to worry about it, the whole fence bill has just been gutted.
Follow Up.
Bajajack - 12-19-2007 at 01:14 PM
Yesterday, Rep. Peter King was reported in the Washington Times
as saying the omnibus spending bill "guts the Secure Fence Act
almost entirely. Quite simply, it is unacceptable."
Today, Michelle Malkin's column -- called the "Disappearing Border
Fence" -- details how Congress’s back-room deal will gut the SecureFence Act. She's now calling it the Fence In Name Only FINO).
Congressman Duncan Hunter says the provision eliminated "the
double-fence requirement.