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rdrrm8e
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TJ Hijack ...details
This is a C&P from Surfer Magazine
Online Exclusives Industry News Pro Tour OP OneWorld
I'll Never Go to Baja Again
They were looking forward to surfing the uncrowded south swell. A pending protest at the border on Friday was sure to slow down the normal throngs of
south bound surfers.
by
Scott Bass
Senior Online Editor At-large
Surfer magazine
Scott@surfermag.com
Comment on this article - Surfermag.com forums.
Baja at dusk. It should be an exciting time, but not a life threatening one.
It was 4 a.m. Friday morning, August 31. Duke, Walt and Roger, three buddies from North San Diego County, were headed down to Mexico keen on surfing
the predicted south swell. Their destination: San Carlos, Baja California for a Labor Day holiday weekend filled with surfing, kite surfing and
relaxation. This was trip they had done many times before. Duke and Roger especially, having grownup in the Solana Beach/Del Mar area
"The masked man stood there, with the gun pointed at my chest, both hands on the grip. I was now looking up, maybe five feet below his feet."
Combined, the three men have been traveling into Baja for over 60 years. Duke and Roger speak fluent Spanish--Roger with a slight gringo accent; Duke
with the native tongue. They were looking forward to surfing the uncrowded south swell. A pending protest at the border on Friday was sure to slow
down the normal throngs of south bound surfers.
They drove in two trucks. A Honda Ridgeline loaded down with three surfboards, four kite boards, six kites, a dirt bike and all the camping gear and
food to keep them happy and fed through Tuesday-as they didn't want to get stuck in the returning border traffic on Labor Day Monday. Roger and Duke
were in the Honda. Behind them followed their buddy Walt in a Toyota Tundra loaded down with five surfboards another three kites, two kite boards and
more camping gear. Oh, and they had some beer, margarita mix and Hornitos Tequila.
- advertisement -
They crossed the border at 4:30 a.m. and preceded toward the toll road, driving along the well-worn road that hugs the border and then climbs the
steep hill toward the Tijuana beaches, the bullring and coastal destinations further south. It is the road that everyone who has ever traveled into
Northern Baja has been on. And the guys were fired up and optimistic as they followed the road south and descended less than half a mile from the
USA/Mexico border. Then the blue lights hit their rear view mirror. Cops.
Tijuana police escort a young man.
They were being pulled over. "This stuff comes with the territory," explained Roger. "Duke and I didn't feel the least bit apprehensive; pay the cop
for whatever bullchit reason he comes up with and move on. Good surf awaited." The three surfers knew the drill; this area is notorious for the $40
Mexican cop shakedown. Duke, who was driving the Honda Ridgline and leading the two-truck caravan handed all his cash to Roger--except for $40 to
pay-off the cop.
"Open the door, " the cop said to Roger as he rolled down the passenger window. A handgun pointed at Roger's eyes. "Open the f-ing door," the cop said
a second time as he slammed the gun against Roger's right temple, reached in and pulled the door open.
As this unfolded, Walt, in the truck behind them and doing his duty as back driver in the caravan, pulled over behind Duke's Honda Ridgeline and
watched in the still, dusky light. 'It immediately looked strange to me," explained Walt. "The cops came out of their truck with their guns drawn. My
first thought is that they were looking for drugs. I thought this wasn't going to be a situation where we get out of it with a bribe."
Within a minute there were two other cops/thugs all over Walt, demanding that he get out of the truck, before simply reaching in and unlocking the
door.
In the meantime Roger, the passenger in the front vehicle, was being dragged out of the truck by his shirt at gunpoint. The Mexican carjacker was
wearing a cut-off black wetsuit ski mask. "I offered the guy my wallet, " explained Roger. "At this point I knew this was serious and I offered him
everything we had, the car our money, everything."
While this transpired Duke the driver of the Ridgleine also had a gun to his head and was being lead out of the car.
With a black semi-automatic gun to his head, Roger was led to the roadside guardrail by the masked man and into a dark, open lot with a formidable
cliff 30 yards away.
Again Roger tried to reason with carjacker. "Take my money," he said and handed him the $200 Duke had given him earlier. The car jacker directed Roger
further into the darkness. Roger was getting closer to the cliff and deeper into the darkness. Again he tried to fend off the attacker with money. "I
reached into my second pocket and threw a wad of cash at him," explained Roger. "The $240 I had for the trip. It fell to the ground and the attacker
looked down, grabbed a wad full and left the stray twenty dollar bills. He looked down at the remaining bills--$60 or $80 dollars-then looked at me,
jerked me forward again. He wasn't interested."
The fruits are very tempting. But will you go to Baja?
Again Roger pleaded with the man to leave him alone. The attacker's dark brown eyes stared at Roger and then twitched. "I think he was high-- on coke
or something," explained the Roger. "His eyes were twitching. The man then continued to lead me further away from the others, into the darkness."
All sorts of thoughts raced through Roger's head. "I wondered if I should run. Would he shoot me? I was living in the moment. Instinct drove me, for
better or for the worse."
At the edge of the 100-foot cliff the man stopped Roger and stared him down. Below was darkness--a 100-foot cliff, trash and debris. Roger stood
facing the street, his back against the pending overhang.
Meanwhile Walt, in the truck behind Duke and Roger, was dealing with his own nightmare. "One of the Mexicans jumped in next to me pushed his c-cked
gun into my face pushing my head onto the dashboard," explained Walt. The cops or carjackers or Federales --nobody is really sure what they were or
are--demanded that Walt get out. "The thug on the passenger side grabbed my shirt and put me over the road-side guardrail," explained Walt. The
Mexican forced Walt's head over the guardrail and c-cked the gun against the back of his head. Walt was waiting to die. Walt glanced up and out of the
corner of his eye saw Roger down on his knees over by the cliff with a gun pointing on him.
"That's when I thought, 'I'm not going to let this guy shoot me here,'" explained Walt. "It wasn't a heroic action by any means. I just wanted to move
out, so I pushed myself up off the guardrail and started walking toward the big ravine that divides the USA from Mexico. That's really when I thought,
this is it, my life was over." Walt figured the Mexican thug was going to shoot him in the back. After five feet or so, and without hearing from the
man holding a gun to his back, Walt started jogging in a zigzag motion toward the cliff, hoping that if the attacker did start firing his gun, perhaps
he would miss him. His plan was to jump off the cliff; at least he had half a chance that way.
The Nissan Frontier cuts directly in front of the taxi, slams on its brakes and skids to a stop in front of the Americans in the taxi, blocking it
from going forward. "We all started screaming "Go! Go! Go!," explained Roger. "It was a scene right of the movie 'Traffic.'"
The masked attacker that held Roger at gunpoint ordered him to get on his hands and knees and crawl down the cliff. It wasn't a straight drop, but
more of a steep incline. Roger groveled down until he found a ledge. He stood and looked up at the mask.
"It was dark, but I could see. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness. It would be light in about an hour,' explained Roger. "The masked man stood
there, with the gun pointed at my chest, both hands on the grip. I was now looking up, maybe five feet below his feet."
The mask looked to his left as if awaiting a signal from the other thugs. He again stared down Roger and again turned to his left. This time he took
his right hand off the handle and pulled the barrel forward and then back, c-cking the gun. He inserted a bullet. The gun was now pointed down
directly at Roger's chest. The man in the mask turned and shot the gun, just above horizon towards the street. He said something, which Roger couldn't
make out and jogged slowly towards the vehicles.
Roger looked over to his left and saw Walt hunched over some twenty yards away. The two saw each other, said nothing. After waiting 30 seconds, maybe
a minute, Roger and Walt ascended the cliff. "This cliff is a big cliff, and it's right on the border and as it got light we could see America on one
side and we're in Mexico," explained Roger. "We were just sort of freaking out. It was surreal. They could have easily killed us and no one would have
known. The two walked up to their friend Duke and the three said nothing. They were in shock. But at least it was over.
Or so they thought.
There was van across the street, an older model van. Beat up. Rickety. Broken down. The kind of vehicle you often see in Mexico. There next to the van
was its owner, an old Mexican man. The three surfers yelled out to the old man in Spanish and he acknowledged that he saw the entire ambush. "He said
he was scared for us, but that he could do nothing because of his age," explained Roger. "We ran over to him and the man opened up the sliding door of
his van and Duke and I immediately jumped in, but Walt was adamant about not getting in this guys' van. "The last thing I wanted to do was get in some
strangers old van," explained Walt. "It didn't feel right."
Walt eventually acquiesced and reluctantly hopped in the van. The old man closed the van door and the three surfers looked at each other anxiously
like, 'was this a good idea?' Their sole focus was to get to the border, and this vehicle was going to get them there.
At this point Roger notices that there is a young man in his 20's sitting in the passenger seat. "The fact that a younger guy was in the passenger
seat which sort of freaked us a bit," explained Walt. "After getting carjacked at gunpoint by Federales we didn't really trust anyone."
The old man turned over the engine in his van and it immediately started up. "I thought it was supposed to be broken," explained Roger. "So I start
thinking was this guy involved. It was very weird."
The old man, the three surfers and the van start rolling down the hill, with the USA on their left and the sun rising brightly. At the bottom of the
hill where the street next to the border fence flattens out, and less than a half mile from the carjacking, a Tijuana Police officer had pulled over a
truck. A flat bed truck. The kind of flatbed truck that you tow other trucks with.
The three surfers tell the old man to stop his van. "We got out of the van to tell the cop about our carjacking incident," explained Walt. The cop
then did something rather unusual. He picked up his cell phone and made a call. He didn't use his official police communications radio installed on
his police truck. "I didn't think much about it at the time, but thinking back on it, it seems strange," explained Roger.
The three American surfers asked the officer to take them immediately to the border to file a report of the incident. "The cop tells us to get in the
back of his police truck and we thought we were going to the border," explains Roger.
But to the surfers dismay the policeman turns onto Avenida Revolucion into the seediest part of Tijuana and pulls over. The surfers demand that he
take them straight to the border. The cop refuses. He suggests they get some cash (Duke still had a hidden credit card) from the ATM machine and hire
a taxi to take them to the border. By this time the surfers are nervous, restless, and paranoid. They ask the TJ police officer to please file report
on the incident but he refuses telling them that the incident happened outside of his jurisdiction.
Not what you want to see in the morning,
Fed up with the lack of regard for their situation, the surfers climb out of the cop's truck and start walking toward the ATM machine so they can get
cash for a taxi to the border. They spot another TJ police officer walking the street beat. It's 5:30am on Avenida Revolucion in Tijuana and all sorts
of sketchy people are around. hoars. Street people. Thugs. Drunks. The cop is on patrol to keep some sense of order. She is genuinely kind and
concerned for the three Americans, and she directs Duke to the ATM kiosk.
Duke walks into the ATM machine kiosk and immediately two guys follow him into the ATM machine. "I was very nervous about it," said Walt. "The woman
cop ran over to Duke and basically guarded him from these two guys."
With cab fare in hand and their focus still on the getting to the USA the surfers, with the help of the cop, hail a taxi. The women cop tells the cab
driver to bring the Americans to the border and to not stop for anyone. "That part was little odd," explained Walt. "It was like she knew something
was going to happen."
Walt, Duke and Roger got in the taxi and headed towards the USA, maybe three miles away from the border. "The cab took us on a one way street toward
the border. Not unusual, I don't think," explained Walt. "Then I hear a loud truck barreling down the street behind us. It's going like 60, maybe 70
MPH."
The Nissan Frontier cuts directly in front of the taxi, slams on its brakes and skids to a stop in front of the Americans in the taxi, blocking it
from going forward. "We all started screaming "Go! Go! Go!," explained Roger. "It was scene right of the movie 'Traffic.'"
Then another vehicle, a VW Tourig, loaded up with four Mexicans, screeches up behind the taxi and boxes it in from behind. The cab couldn't move. All
three surfers are screaming at the cab driver to move out.
Serendipitously, the driver positioned the cab in a manner so that she could escape from the two pursuing vehicles and the taxi bolted full speed to
the border.
Carjacked and kidnapped and contracted for death, at this point the three American Surfers were completely spun. The would-be kidnappers pursued, but
there were other cars around by this time as the commute across to the USA was filling up traffic.
They paid the taxi driver and bolted a hundred yards or so to the pedestrian crossing. They attempted to tell another Mexican police officer but
again, no help. They crossed the border. They called 911. They called their wives. They were safe at last.
In hindsight Duke, Walt and Roger believe the masked carjacker was a police officer. According to the three, that may explain why he wore a mask and
the other carjackers did not.
Another interesting note: According to the surfers, the carjackers all spoke fine English, with barely a trace of an Hispanic accent. The carjacking
was very professional, and went down with a strategic polish one might see in the military. "These guys were pros, " explains Walt. "Their guns were
drawn and they were on us fast. Even if we had a gun, there is no way we could have acted."
Mexico has always been a scary place. According to one report, more journalists have died in Mexico than in Iraq. It's the Wild West. It is not safe.
"I'll never drive into Mexico again. I've been surfing in northern Baja for over 20 years and I'll never go back," explained Roger. "There is nobody
that cares about you. Nobody. You are all alone and the bad guys are the good guys and the good guys...well there aren't any."
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honda tom
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Im crossing tonite at 1am. I dont think I will pull over for anything till the toll booth, after reading that.
I have a friend whos info is sometimes shaky.... he tells me that some kind of statement has been made by the chief of police or the govenor of baja
norte that no american citizen is to be pulled over in that zone. anyone heard anything like that?
it would be nice to get it in writting!
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rdrrm8e
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I don't think these cops are reading the chief's memos.
I read that same story about the "ticket free zone" in Gringo Gazette in may or june I think. I haven't seen a cop in that area since.
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vandenberg
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| Quote: | Originally posted by honda tom
Im crossing tonite at 1am. I dont think I will pull over for anything till the toll booth, after reading that.
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After all that and you are crossing into TJ at 1 in the morning Must like to
live dangerously
Somewhere in my head I got another word for that
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CaboRon
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Honda Tom,
After all that's been written here about driving at night in baja, and expecially on the toll road, won't you please reconsider and leave at 8am
instead ?
Just a friendly word,
CaboRon
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rdrrm8e
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Hey CaboRon..I live in Anaheim
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rts551
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reads like fiction... fiction from a very poor rag... but then I don't have to cross in TJ either
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bacquito
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Good Grief- I'll try to avoid crossing at night!
bacquito
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DanO
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| Quote: | Originally posted by honda tom
I have a friend whos info is sometimes shaky.... he tells me that some kind of statement has been made by the chief of police or the govenor of baja
norte that no american citizen is to be pulled over in that zone. anyone heard anything like that?
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Oh, they're pulling people over, at least in the daylight. (After reading this story, BTW, my personal preference not to drive anywhere south of the
border on pavement is now a personal rule. Fiction or not, I figure it's better to be safe than sorry.) On Monday afternoon they had a speed trap
set up under the bridge at the bottom of the big hill, just past the turnoff to Playas. Two motorcycle cops with radar guns pointed up the hill, with
a third waving people over to the side for their tickets. I saw at least one car pulled over with U.S. plates. BTW, they had another highway cop
with radar pulling people over at La Mision, at the bottom of the downgrade past La Fonda, last Friday.
\"Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.\" -- Frank Zappa
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oldhippie
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according to the original post
"Another interesting note: According to the surfers, the carjackers all spoke fine English, with barely a trace of an Hispanic accent."
Well that leaves out anybody born and raised in Tijuana or any part of Mexico for that matter. How many Mexicans have you met that speak fine English
without an accent? How many Americans have you met that speak fine Spanish without an accent for that matter?
If this story is true, and I REALLT DOUBT IT, then it must have been people raised in the United States doing the dirty deeds. Well, then, maybe it is
true.
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Taco de Baja
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| Quote: | Originally posted by honda tom
I have a friend whos info is sometimes shaky.... he tells me that some kind of statement has been made by the chief of police or the govenor of baja
norte that no american citizen is to be pulled over in that zone. anyone heard anything like that?
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Tell that to the polite cop who pulled me over on the 18th just before the Playas exit.... 
Truth generally lies in the coordination of antagonistic opinions
-Herbert Spencer
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oldhippie
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Taco de Baja
| Quote: | Originally posted by honda tom
I have a friend whos info is sometimes shaky.... he tells me that some kind of statement has been made by the chief of police or the govenor of baja
norte that no american citizen is to be pulled over in that zone. anyone heard anything like that?
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Tell that to the polite cop who pulled me over on the 18th just before the Playas exit.... |
I heard that rumor too and I didn't see many cops on the road, I travel it a couple of times a week, until the army checkpoint was removed. They're
there now. Like I said in another thread, I was pulled over for speeding, which I was, and the cop very politely gave me a warning and let me go.
But, I think we will start taking a cab to and from la Coahuila on our occasional late night forays into the dark side. 
I suppose it could be recent deportees raised with American values getting even. That would make sense.
[Edited on 9-5-2007 by oldhippie]
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rts551
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Keep spreading this story. the more people that stay north. the better it is for me.
DANO...."my personal preference not to drive anywhere south of the border on pavement is now a personal rule". Does this mean no more BAJA?
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mtgoat666
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| Quote: | Originally posted by rdrrm8e
Combined, the three men have been traveling into Baja for over 60 years. |
A first-person version of the story is online here:
http://www.surfline.com/surfnews/surfwire.cfm?id=10923
Almost the same words, so looks like a creative writing exercise, various drafts floating around, experimenting with writing in first and third
person, perhaps?
Anyhoo, the guys had 60 pretty dumb years of travel experience to have never learned about driving at nite.
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DENNIS
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Went through the area where the military checkpoint was, before the entrance to Playas, today at 3:30 PM. Two bubble-headed bike cops had a car
pulled over. One negotiating through the passenger side window, the other watching oncoming traffic.
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BajaNomad
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Here's the surfermag.com link:
http://surfermag.com/features/onlineexclusives/carjackedmexi...
When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.
– Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
We know we must go back if we live, and we don`t know why.
– John Steinbeck, Log from the Sea of Cortez
Affordable Domain Name Registration/Management & cPanel Web Hosting:
https://www.regionalinternet.com |
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woody with a view
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made it down and back without anything worse than a sunburn and noodle arms from the RELENTLESS set waves.
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bajabound2005
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Sure hope they bought Mex insurance and cleared it through the lienholders on those loaded vehicles before leaving the USA...
Friends don't let friends drink white zinfandel.
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wakemall
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I always cross at 0300 to 0430 pulling a boat. What would happen if you did not stop until you hit the toll booths. Kind of hard to stop a big truck
and boat with a small car. Not scared of anything other than bullets?!?!?!!?!?!
How many people cross the border at this time and get attacked? Less than 1%... Flip somebody off in LA and see what happens.
DO not know what to think...
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fdt
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| Quote: | Originally posted by oldhippie
Well that leaves out anybody born and raised in Tijuana or any part of Mexico for that matter. How many Mexicans have you met that speak fine English
without an accent? How many Americans have you met that speak fine Spanish without an accent for that matter?
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Who are you asking? I personaly know many, many of both.
A well informed Baja California traveler is a smart Baja California traveler!
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