It is unfortunate but Sr. Federico Benitez Lopez is not the only
Tijuana Police Chief to quite spontaneously depart to immortality.
Three other Tijuana police chiefs have been murdered: Arturo Ochoa
Palacios, Isaac Sanchez Perez, and Alfredo de la Torre Márquez.
Then
too, the former commander of the federal police force in Tijuana,
is under investigation in the murder of State Prosecutor Hodin
Armando Gutierrez Rico who was accidentally shot 150 times while
standing in front of his house, and then tragically, and certainly
accidentally, run over by a large truck.
Yes,
and the former commander of the federal police, Rodolfo Garcia
Gaxiola, has been under a cloud of suspicion for possibly having
whacked Sr. Gutierrez because he was planning to arrest Sr. Gaxiola
in connection with the murder of the Tijuana police chief, Jose
Federico Benitez Lopez. It seems that the now very dead police
chief had turned down a $100,000 bribe from the drug traffickers
sometime just before he expired. All of this would make a good
Daytime TV Soap but the cost of transfusions and caskets might
make it too pricey to videotape.
Cali,
Columbia, may be the world’s center of drug violence with
an average of 1,000 dead per year, but Tijuana is doing its part
to compete.
Tijuana can be an exciting tourist destination, with more than
40 dead right on city streets in one 30 day period: Mesa de Otay
(16 dead), La Mesa (14 dead), and downtown Tijuana (11 dead).
American
tourists visiting Tijuana do face a good chance of being in the
middle of one of these events and really having something worth
talking about back in Omaha. Collecting smoke stained bullet casings
off the sidewalk of Avenida Revolucion might make a good show
at coffee with the girls.
Tourists
should remain alert. There are several police stations in Tijuana
and even one right at the San Ysidro Port of Entry (POE). Certainly,
the one at the POE should be the most secure and the most carefully
watched. But it was here at the POE police station that an American
women was raped by Tijuana Police. The husband and his nine year
old son were taken to an ATM kiosk to get money for the bribe
while the wife was subjected to extreme “duress”.
While
bad, it can get worse. Yes, you can wind up very dead in a police
station.
