Maggie's Madness Drug War Chronicles Baja California
A continuation of events surrounding the drug war and related social issues of Baja California and Mexico. Keeping an eye on Seig Heil Trump. We are still trying to restore all blogs from 2006 which were hacked by Linton Robinson and his team, famous for supporting the Baja Trump Towers on one of his real estate sites. Highlights of Paris-Simone's favorite music !!
"MEXICO CITY (AP) — The Mexican government officially abandoned the
policy of maintaining a fishing-free zone around the last 10 or so
remaining vaquita marina.
The measure announced Wednesday replaces the fishing-free “zero
tolerance” zone in the upper Gulf of California with a sliding scale of
punishments if more than 60 boats are seen in the area on multiple
occasions.
Given that Mexico has been unable to enforce the current restrictions
— which bans boats in the small area — the sliding-scale punishments
also seem doomed to irrelevance.
Environmental experts say the move essentially abandons the world’s
most endangered marine mammal to the gill nets that trap and drown them.
The nets are set for totoaba, a fish whose swim bladder is a delicacy
in China, and sells for thousands of dollars per pound (kilogram).
Alex Olivera, the Mexico representative for the Center for Biological
Diversity, said the rules establish a sliding scale of responses to a
situation that shouldn’t be allowed to occur in the first place. For
example, the Agriculture and Fisheries Department says it will use 60%
of its enforcement personnel if 20 fishing boats or less are seen in the
restricted area.
“This is stupid. They are waiting to count boats in an area
designated as ‘zero tolerance,’ where there shouldn’t be a single boat,”
Olivera said. “They are letting in dozens of boats.”
“This is the end of the concept of zero tolerance,” Olivera said. “There is just going to be dissuasion.”
One conservation expert who is familiar with the case, but who cannot
be quoted by name for fear of repercussions, said the new rules “imply
not protecting the vaquita.”
“It appears that fisheries authorities want to drive the vaquita to extinction,” the expert said.
Two ships from the conservationist group Sea Shepherd have worked
with Mexican marines to try to grab banned fishing nets from the area,
but they are frequently outnumbered and attacked by fishermen, who have
no fear at all of the marines.
In January, two fishermen rammed their small boat into a larger
vessel used by Sea Shepherd to haul out nets. Sea Shepherd said its
vessel, the Farley Mowat, was pulling illegal gill nets out of the
waters of the gulf, also known as the Sea of Cortez, when people on a
group of about a half dozen small, open fishing boats began tossing
gasoline bombs at the vessel, setting the bow and another part of the
ship afire.
The nets confiscated by Sea Shepherd vessels are expensive, so
fishermen often harass the conservationists’ boats to try to get them
back. The fishermen claim they have not received compensation from the
Mexican government for lost fishing income. Groups representing
fishermen were not immediately available to comment.
The upper Gulf of California is the only place the vaquita lives.
Mexico’s Environment Department had previously said the drop in the
number of vaquitas and the area where they have been seen in recent
years justified reducing the protection zone, which in theory once
covered most of the upper Gulf.
Formally known as the vaquita “reserve,” that zone starts around the
Colorado river delta and extends south past the fishing town of San
Felipe and near Puerto Peñasco.
But as vaquita numbers dwindled to a few dozen, and then to less than
a dozen, scientists and environmentalists decided to make a last-ditch
stand in the ‘zero tolerance’ zone, a far smaller area where the last
vaquita were seen.
Their numbers are confirmed by subaquatic listening devices that
graph the squeaks and squeals the animals make, even as visual sighting
become rare."
"The number of new COVID-19 infections in the country topped 26,500
yesterday, a two-week increase of 111 percent. Experts broadly agree the
reasons behind this new infection spike are twofold: (1) The Delta
variant of COVID is highly infectious and on the verge of becoming the
dominant strain in the U.S.; (2) Millions of people continue to refuse
to get vaccinated or wear masks.
Note well, there are plenty of people who remain unvaccinated
for very comprehensible reasons: They live in areas where the shot is
still difficult to obtain, or they are prevented from doing so for
unavoidable work/life requirements, or they have vaccination hesitancy
that is deeply rooted in an understandable distrust of medical experts
who have grossly abused their communities for generations.
The problem, however, is that millions of people remain unvaccinated —
and won’t wear masks — because they think Donald Trump won the 2020
election, because Trump says he did. The way they have chosen to combat
the ocean of criticism earned by the Trump presidency is simple, and
utterly lethal: If Trump is good, that means science is bad, so screw
science and screw you, too. If this self-destructive practice is not
interrupted, we may be in for another long and brutal winter.
“Vaccines have been available to most Americans for months,” reportsCNN,
“but still only 48.2% of the country is fully vaccinated, according to
the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) — and the rate
of new vaccinations is on the decline. Meanwhile, case rates have been
going up dramatically. In 47 states, the rate of new cases in the past
week are at least 10% higher than the previous week, according to data
from Johns Hopkins University. Of those, 35 have seen increases of over
50%. Officials and experts have said disinformation is largely to blame
for the high number of unvaccinated Americans, a group which is now
seeing the largest impacts of the pandemic.”
Matters are becoming dire enough to spur the largest nurses’ union in
the U.S. to urge the reinstatement of the mask mandate. National Nurses
United executive director Bonnie Castillo transmitted a letter
to the CDC warning, “The Covid-19 pandemic is far from over.” The
letter goes on to lay out a swath of terrifying infection numbers. “NNU
strongly urges the CDC to reinstate universal masking, irrespective of
vaccination status, to help reduce the spread of the virus, especially
from infected individuals who do not have any symptoms,” pleads the
concluding message.
“Officials and experts have said disinformation is largely to blame for the high number of unvaccinated Americans,” reported CNN. But why? Qui bono? Who
benefits? As it turns out, the same old right-wing hucksters are the
ones who benefit the most, the ones who will say anything in order to
dent the conversation and increase their own power, no matter how many
of their own people they trick into an early, gasping grave. Jonathan
Bernstein of Bloomberg Newsexplains it:
It works like this. A fringe group of the party seeks to
differentiate itself from the mainstream. To do that, its members set
out to prove that they are the True Conservatives and everyone else is a
wishy-washy Republican in Name Only at best, and a collaborating
liberal at worst. However, by now the mainstream of the party has become
so conservative that there are no easy moves to make that involve
pushing one or another policy preference….
The key point here is that there is no counter move available to the
rest of the party. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi or Senate Majority Leader
Chuck Schumer can say that they oppose such-and-such a policy because
they are liberals, not socialists. There’s no parallel move for the
Republican congressional leaders, Kevin McCarthy in the House or Mitch
McConnell in the Senate. That doesn’t mean that mainstream conservatives
always go along, but within the norms of the party they’re not allowed
to call anyone too conservative, let alone any more negative
characterization.
How do you set yourself outside and above the conservative pack?
Start by refusing to wear a mask. Follow that by refusing to get
vaccinated. Not long after, begin making spurious claims that the
vaccinations are deadly, and when people don’t die in sufficient numbers
to support that egregious lie, downshift to the argument that
vaccinations and masks are the newest iteration of Nazi fascism.
I do not see an easy solution to this problem, especially in a
country that prides itself on freedom of opinion, even monstrously
self-destructive opinion. How do you fix this when the governor of
Florida is selling t-shirts
attacking Anthony Fauci, the government’s lead COVID expert, even as
that state endures 3,000 new COVID hospitalizations a day? New
infections in Florida are up 429 percent over the last two weeks, a
number only matched by Tennessee, where the government has all but declared the topic of coronavirus to be off limits.
The way things are headed, we could soon be forced back into our
masks for all occasions, back into seclusion, and worse, forced to bear
witness to a segment of the population as it kills itself in the
culmination of 40 years of nihilistic Republican ideology. One wonders
if it really could have ended any other way."
~~~~~
Mike is against mandating the vaccination, I think it should be mandated. Kind of reminds me of when General Patton (who was unfortunately an extreme racist but a great commander) wanted to keep on and push the Russians all the way back to Russia. Too bad he was a racist.
~ From Hollywood !
~~~~~
Finally , a tally of Tijuana execution stats from June & July:
"With
the death of six more people in the course of Tuesday and the morning
of this Wednesday, June 30, the statistics of intentional homicides
swelled to 189 victims in June and 1,033 so far in 2021.
Among
the violent events that occurred yesterday, the discovery of a charred
body in the vicinity of the Pedregal de Santa Julia neighborhood stands
out, in addition to the remains a threat written on a cardboard was
left.
The
report originated around 6 in the morning, when it indicated that on a
stretch of dirt road on Francisco I Madero Street and Libramiento Sur
there was a body under the flames, and next to the body, his
perpetrators left him a cardboard with a message that said: " THIS
IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO ALL THE FUCKING PEOPLE KE ANDE DE CHAPULÍN IN EL
PEDREGAL, LET'S GO FOR YOU PABLITO ATTE: LA MERA VERGA."
Later,
inside a house located in Lino Rocha and Albino García alley, Guerrero
neighborhood, a man of approximately 45 years of age was found dead. The
victim, unidentified, had tattoos on his head, abdomen, arms and legs; He had a lesion on the left cheekbone. Four casings were found at the crime scene.
While in the facilities of the General Hospital of Tijuana, a man between 45 and 50 years old died. It is unknown where he was attacked.
Finally,
this Wednesday the 30th around 11 in the morning, the cowering body of a
woman was found inside a white van, of recent model, California plates,
which was abandoned on Cañón de la Pedrera street, in the neighborhood
of El same name.
In none of the events are detained persons reported."
"From
11 a.m. on Wednesday, July 14, residents of the Independencia
neighborhood in Tijuana notified the police authorities that unknown
persons had abandoned a blue colored plastic container on Juan Aldama Street
and San Antonio de los Buenos Avenue that gave off foul odors and
had traces of blood.
However,
according to residents of the area, police elements arrived at the
scene eight hours later and confirmed that it was the mutilated body of a
male person.
“Since they left the container it was reported to the authorities; but hours passed and nothing happened, the government came. One came closer and it smelled very strong and there was blood. The police just said they were on their way and nothing. There
was an operation in the Independencia neighborhood, downtown area, but
no one was arrested, ”one of the residents told ZETA.
According
to the police report, inside the container which was lying on the road,
there was a black plastic bag and a blue blanket and human remains
inside. Elements of the Prosecutor's Office processed the crime scene around 9:00 p.m.
Another
of the violent events recorded yesterday Wednesday was the discovery of
the body of a person on a dirt road between the Vía Rápida and Alamar
in the Alamar neighborhood. The deceased was wrapped in blankets and covered with black plastic bags. So far the identity of the victim is unknown as well as the events that caused his death.
So far in July, 92 intentional homicides have been registered and 1,108 in 2021."
~~~~~
Don't miss all of the news & reports from Zeta.
~~~~~
Meanwhile, the Australian Dream Cream really isn't doing anything great for me . So, it is slow going. See you guys later.
"A convoy of vigilantes snakes along a road in western Mexico, vowing
to defend their avocado orchards from gangs sowing terror in a country
reeling from a new wave of bloodshed.
Armed with assault rifles
and other firearms, the masked men travel between plantations and
maintain checkpoints in Ario de Rosales in Michoacan state, the scene of
a bloody cartel turf war.
Before they began patrolling the area,
residents lived in fear of kidnapping, extortion and theft of avocados,
according to a member of the self-defense group Pueblos Unidos, which
says it has 700 members.
"We need to be armed to defend
ourselves," he told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity, wearing a
badge reading "Down with injustice, no more dead."
Previously, criminals "came to do what they wanted to us, and that doesn't happen anymore," he added.
President
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador opposes such self-defense groups -- a
phenomenon that dates back to 2013 -- saying that some of them have
become fronts for criminals.
Such comments are not well received
in Ario de Rosales, where another Pueblos Unidos member says the
president should "get his shoes dirty" to discover the reality of life
in the area, where the Jalisco New Generation and Los Viagras cartels
operate.
The police and military "feared the criminals or were
paid by them to do nothing," said another vigilante who gave his name as
Martin.
- 'Hugs not bullets' -
It is estimated that there
are around 50 such self-defense groups in Mexico, which has seen
intensifying violence in recent months, notably in Michoacan and the
northern states of Tamaulipas and Zacatecas.
Mexico registered
14,243 murders in the first five months of the year, and the bloodshed
has shown no sign of stopping since then.
On June 19, alleged
members of the Gulf Cartel shot dead 15 people described by the
government as innocent victims in the border city of Reynosa in
Tamaulipas.
Four attackers were killed by the police.
One
hitman who was arrested said that the massacre sought to "heat up the
plaza" -- a form of random killings to divert the attention of the
authorities away from other areas.
On June 29, nine bodies were
found near Ciudad Miguel Aleman, also in Tamaulipas, where criminals are
fighting for control of a border bridge used to smuggle drugs, weapons
and migrants, according to an intelligence source.
And a
shootout between alleged gang members left 18 dead in Zacatecas, where
the bodies of two policemen were hung from a bridge.
Despite the
escalation in violence, Lopez Obrador refuses to declare war on the
cartels, arguing that this policy failed in the past.
Instead he has maintained a strategy of "hugs not bullets" and fighting crime at its roots by attacking poverty and inequality.
More
than 300,000 people have been murdered since the government of then
president Felipe Calderon deployed the military in the war on drugs in
2006.
- 'Power vacuums' -
Since then the dominant cartels
have splintered to the point that around 200 gangs now operate in the
country, according to the think tank InSight Crime.
Lopez Obrador has told the United States that he wants to end military cooperation in fighting narcotics trafficking.
"You
cannot confront violence with violence," he said on Friday about the
situation in Aguililla, another Michoacan town terrorized by warring
gangs.
In April, former US ambassador Christopher Landau said that
Lopez Obrador saw the cartels as a "distraction" from a domestic agenda
mostly focused on social programs.
"So he has basically
adopted a pretty laissez-faire attitude towards them," said Landau, who
was ex-president Donald Trump's envoy in Mexico City.
Lopez
Obrador's policy of non-confrontation with the cartels has left "power
vacuums" exploited by gangs, according to Jose Reveles, a drug
trafficking specialist.
In Aguililla, residents recently attacked a
garrison with homemade explosives to try to pressure the military into
reopening roads that had been blocked by rival gangs.
"We were trapped in the village and getting food was very difficult," said Eugenia, a mother of two living in the town.
Aguililla
is at the center of a turf war between Carteles Unidos and Jalisco New
Generation, whose leader Nemesio Oseguera was born there.
"While
the government said that things were fine and there was no organized
crime, we saw them on a daily basis, with high-powered weapons," another
resident who did not want to be named told AFP.
Before I list the atrocities here, this next one might help...because in both countries I feel bombarded with super creepy news... like the horrible heat and implosion of the environment, or like in the case of Kristi Noem et al. Do you ever wonder about that old cliche that went something like, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is insanity ? (BTW, Einstein did not make up that quote.) At any rate, worth the read:
Meanwhile, my knee is killing me - I tried the CBD Cream and it did nothing; now I'm headed to the tub to soak in Dead Sea Minerals and then try the Australian Dream Cream which is pricey. I just refuse to use any NSAID ever again.
I found a house built in the 1920s then remodeled in the early '90's near to Windansea & Marine St.; but looking closely at the satellite pictures, the old beaches from Windansea to the Cove are packed wall to wall with what looks like dorks and hodads and they took most of the darling old time homes out and put up a million crappy condos, they have ruined it ! It doesn't matter, I couldn't afford it anyway and Mike doesn't think there are too many progressive people left like in the days of the Pumphouse Gang and then later, Angela Davis. Yea, I know but I can dream. If you go to the link, you'll see Charlie Chaplin in the hallway - there was a lot of this type of architecture in the 20's in California including the Montecito Inn which was was built by Chaplin & his friends.
Speaking of Australia, we are wrapping up "Mr. In Between" who I think is the ultimate anti-hero, but none of reviews have described him as that.
So, later tonight or tomorrow I'll fill in the blanks around here.... it's been pretty bad.
If you need a break from all the bad news and if you haven't seen this you should...and even if you have seen it, watch it again ! Put it on full screen and turn it up ya'll.
Jon Batiste is sensational.
I didn't want to blog and break the spell...be back later...
Just as we are slowly stepping away from the Pandemic (with the exceptions of the Southern good ole boy network led by weird Republicans who still refuse to be immunized), another disaster; the collapse of the Surfside Florida Condo building. Everyone wants the occupants to be located and survive, in this case, it will take a miracle. But, how did this happen ? What was the cause or causes ?
~ From NBC:
“It’s a tough conversation to have, but the building shouldn’t have been
there,” Pilkey said, “along with a lot of other buildings. We’re due
for a real awakening.”
I promised I would come back to the Kamala Harris visit to Mexico over two weeks ago and her statement to the migrantes: "Do Not Come." Despite what some see as improvements such as the purging of US Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott (which happened barely a few days back and surely more will follow suit), those were harsh words. Just a note on Rodney and his pals: Here is the latest I could find on the San Diego USBP racist Facebook group and true blue Trumpistas:
~ From Pro-Publica:
" The Border Patrol vowed a full accounting after ProPublica revealed
hateful posts in the private Facebook group. Now congressional
investigators say the agency is blocking them and revealing little about
its internal investigation."
You have most likely read, seen or heard of the harrowing jungle crossings the migrantes make in search of the Promised Land. Here is the latest report from the Rio Grande Valley which basically validates the Harris point that it is simply too dangerous a journey to undertake, don't do it.
"In the Rio Grande
Valley, human smuggling is overseen by a powerful crime syndicate,
forcing the migrants arriving in record numbers to put their lives in
violent hands "
"Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – Democrats
claim to defend an honest rendition of US history, one that will be
attentive to the injustices inflicted by slavery and racism.
Unfortunately, however, that honesty stops at the water’s edge. While
the president prepared for and conducted a widely- covered summit that
among other things warned Russians not to interfere once again in US
elections, Vice President Harris was sternly admonishing Central
American to stay put.
One strand that unites Biden’s chastisement of Putin and Harris’s
blunt command is their historical amnesia. They chastise Russia and
Central America from an assumed stance of moral purity. Nonetheless,
their version of American exceptionalism won’t survive even a casual
examination of recent US dealings with Russia or the triangle states of
Central America.
Vice President Harris has received some praise for acknowledging that
surges in migration are a reflection of underlying causes. Poverty,
violence, and corruption are most often cited. Correct as this
observation is it fails to acknowledge US responsibility for those
causes. Violence poverty, and corruption are treated as free- floating
maladies that just happened and around which US policy must navigate.
If things go badly that is because violence and corruption were too
great.
Dana Frank,
emerita professor University of California/Santa Cruz points out:
“people are very much fleeing poverty. But that poverty, again, is not a
natural disaster. It’s the direct result of the post-{US-backed ]coup
policies.” Neoliberal faith in markets destroyed the state, which is
the only barrier to the excesses of the market.. In addition “ state
services have been destroyed because the elites that run the government
are just robbing it blind. For example, the president and his party
stole as many as $90 million from the national health service in 2013 to
pay for their campaigns, and so then there’s no national health service
that functions.
Frank observed that while then Vice President, Joe Biden wanted to
give a billion dollars to the governments of the so-called northern
Triangle of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador in order to stop
migration and address root causes, “If you look at that, it’s pouring
precisely into the same security forces and sectors of the economy that
are causing the very repression, the very destruction of the economy
that people are fleeing.”
That sort of amnesia seems well distributed in DC., as was demonstrated in the press conference following the summit. Here is President Biden’s
remarkable revisionist history:: “get this straight: How would it be if
the United States were viewed by the rest of the world as interfering
with the elections directly of other countries, and everybody knew it?
What would it be like if we engaged in activities that he is engaged in?
It diminishes the standing of a country that is desperately trying to
make sure it maintains its standing as a world power.” In response to
this absurdity the DC press corps lent its tacit ascent by remaining
silent.
What is involved here is more than an academic controversy over recent Central American history. As the editors of NACLA point
out: “memory can be leveraged as a tool of education, political action,
and alternative building, while its antithesis, forgetting, can serve
as a weapon to impose silence and erasure.
Joe Biden is notoriously muddleheaded. Perhaps the most charitable
way to regard these words is as another incoherent rant. If policy
choices are guided by a conviction of US innocence and even
international faith in that innocence, more self-defeating atrocities
marked all over with the USA brand will likely emerge."
John Buell has a PhD in political science, taught for 10 years at College of the Atlantic, and was an Associate Editor of The Progressive
for ten years. He lives in Southwest Harbor, Maine and writes on labor
and environmental issues. His most recent book, published by Palgrave
in August 2011, is "Politics, Religion, and Culture in an Anxious Age."
He may be reached at jbuell@acadia.net
~~~~~
Meanwhile back in the USA, everyone is talking about the gun violence...and yet everyone knows not mucho will ever be done to curtail guns in our society due to the powerful gun lobbies. The best news is that.....
Speaking of gun violence, here is this evenings Brooks and Capeheart, where Capeheart makes a remarkable comparison to the actual decrease in gun violence since the 1990's...although not until almost the end of the show.
"New York Times columnist David Brooks and Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week in politics, including the potential breakthrough on the road to an infrastructure deal, the justice department's lawsuit against Georgia's voting restrictions, and the president's plan to curb surging violent crime across the country. "
~~~~~
And locally at the moment, we are at 163 executions this month of June. Don't miss all the reports:
"Three men and a woman were murdered in the last hours in Tijuana. Two of the victims were left threatening messages by their killers.
According
to police reports, it was around 06:00 hours on Thursday, June 24, when
it was reported to the emergency center that on Héctor Luteroth and
Julián Navarrete streets in the San Luis neighborhood, gunshot
detonations were heard, for the municipal police they went to the place.
After
a tour of the area, at a riding school, they observed that there was a
male person with a gunshot wound to the head and a legend written on a
white blanket with the legend that to the letter read: “ ESTO LE BA PASS ALL THE KAPOSYEN SUPPORT THE SINALOA YAP 8081 ″.
The unidentified victim wore blue jeans, a black jacket and was covered with a blanket.
In
the afternoon, it was reported that the lifeless body of a woman was
found on a stretch of dirt on Mar de Buena Vista street on the corner of
Isla Coronado in the Buena Vista neighborhood. The
unidentified victim, aged between 20 and 26, who wore denim shorts, a
white hoodie, white tennis shoes and a tattoo on his arm, had blood
spots on his head. Ballistic evidence was recorded at the crime scene.
Later,
in the trunk of a green Honda Accord, model 95, without license plates,
the bound body of a man was found, which was semi covered with a
blanket. The unit was
located on Miguel Lira and Gómez Farías streets in the Morelos
neighborhood, a few meters from the military barracks.
Information obtained by ZETA indicates that a wooden board was left on the passenger seat with a message that read: " AKI ALREADY HAS AN OWNER, FOLLOW YOUR CUATE C ALINIATE ATTN THE 4 LETTERS".
It should be noted that the unit where the body was found had a robbery report dated June 17.
Finally,
a man who was walking along Río Amacuzac street in the Mariano
Matamoros neighborhood was executed by unknown individuals who shot him
repeatedly from a moving car. The victim had several gunshot wounds. Witnesses
report that the hit men were aboard a red sedan vehicle, which fled
towards Hermenegildo Galeana street, without having been located to
date. Seven ballistic evidence was found in the crime area.
So far, none of the cases are reported detainees.
Tijuana adds 163 intentional homicides so far in June."
~~~~~
The weather has been cool here, no heat wave so far. Paris had her cytopoint shot today, I'm still limping around and the feral cats knocked over two of my pots (masetas) on the wall. Going to make a big greek salad for over the weekend with some homemade bread since it's not hot.
Take care everyone.... light candles for the folks in Surfside.
Wow, not bad for a white boy...oh jeez it's you-know-who:
Finally I am coming out of the cortisone nightmare, thank goodness...it just took forever and tons of water drinking. I'm actually going to try to get outside tomorrow and put in some bulbs in large pots, wowie. We also had another water line break under the house during the swarms of earthquakes out by the Salton Sea which have seemed to diminish and have been super lucky not to have been hit by the heat wave. Here, the max temperature has been 80 degrees - but it will probably get worse and no talk about water conservation down here so far. Paris , Totsie, Rubio and Squirt are all fat and happy, except Paris pushes me out of bed.
Speaking of the environment, we made a huge mistake by watching Ben Wheatley's " In The Earth" thinking that it was just going to be a good scary movie. Afterall, it showed at Sundance, right ? I did not realize he is a cult figure as well as his other films which I've never seen, but this one was ridiculous. He really is manipulative and the violence is horrible. I felt this film was a slap in the face to sincere works on the environment. It was like he took way too much bad acid and never came down. Anyway, trees do talk to each other. Paris hated it.
Thrilled that the Affordable Care Act survived , Juneteenth finally a National holiday and the reversal of some Trump immigration policies. Keeping an eye on Kamala (I'll come back to that)and Nicaragua (Ortega is as bad as Samoza III...and not according to Telesur, I'll come back to that one.)
As far as COVID goes here locally, people have been lined up finally receiving the J&J shot, but there hasn't been a peep about the Delta variant. Look at Cabo:
Of 156 converted beds for coronavirus patients, 126 are occupied; Regarding cavitary fans, the current occupation is 54% in the tourist destination
“Los
Cabos had a significant increase since May 4, consecutively each week
it was increasing, last week it had an incidence of 188 cases per
100,000 inhabitants, as of yesterday it already has a rate of 272.47
cases per 100,000 inhabitants ; La Paz, from 91 goes up to 182; Mulegé,
from 17 down to 14; Comondú, from 13 goes up to 25; and Loreto, from 4
goes up to 27 ”, acknowledged Miguel Romero Calderón, epidemiologist at
the Baja California Sur Secretariat of Health.
Los
Cabos is already in a critical situation, the pandemic is overwhelming
the health services in that area. According to data published by the
State Health Safety Committee, the main clinics are 80.76% of the
hospital occupancy. Of 156 beds converted to care for patients with
COVID-19, 126 are occupied; Regarding cavitary fans, the current
occupancy is 54%.
“We have in Clinic 1 of the IMSS a total of 42 patients, one suspect and 41 confirmed, of which 22 are confirmed intubated; in Clinic 26, of 41 patients, three are under study, 138 confirmed, of which eleven are intubated; In the expansion of the IMSS, of 37 we have 35 confirmed, two suspects and 23 are intubated; in La Paz we have a 33% distribution of hospitalized patients; Los Cabos 63%, Mulegé and Comondú, 2% ”, stated Romero Calderón.
The
Clinics 26 and the expansion of that unit are at full capacity and, to
relieve the occupation, it has begun with the transfer of patients to La
Paz; however, more patients arrive every day.
At
the state level, there are 207 patients hospitalized in the different
medical units, unfortunately 172 are in serious, critical or intubated
condition.
"Regarding
the follow-up of confirmed cases by type of care, we have that 86% are
outpatients, which represents 1,313, we find that 2% are stable
hospitalized, 6% seriously hospitalized and 6% intubated hospitalized,"
the specialist counted.
“The trend of hospitalized patients increased from 156 to 200 in relation to the previous week, confirmed from 136 to 176; intubated patients increased from 61 to 83 in relation to the previous week ”, he added.
From
the first week of June the multiplier of COVID patients began, it is
not only about people who were in the campaigns; most were infected in
their homes by those attending political events. Those meetings left
havoc in La Paz and mainly in Los Cabos, where infections have risen
sharply in the last ten days. They increased 44% from one week to the
next, which is worrying because citizens are no longer taking sanitary
measures such as healthy distance and use of mouth covers, and shopping
malls are beginning to notice relaxation on the part of their visitors.
At
the end of May there were 554 active cases and 1,515 deaths, and at the
end of this edition, fifteen days later, the figure is 1,717 active
cases and 1,569 deaths. One thousand 163 more cases, that is, an increase of 210% in two weeks.
While deaths rose to 54 (3.6 per day), the majority occurred in Los Cabos.
“The
main cause of the increase in these cases is the crowds of people who
were in political campaigns, it is definitely something that we
anticipated or predicted. The
conglomeration was lost healthy distance, they did not use gel or
anything like that, under the euphoria it was lost, that is the natural
history of the patients that we have, there they agree with the days of
greatest campaign and campaign closings ”, launched Víctor George Flores
, Secretary of Health in Baja California Sur.
The
authority is exceeded, for this reason the businessmen of various
branches came out and are working in La Paz and Los Cabos to avoid
closure, because if the epidemiological traffic light changes, they
would be the most affected.
“The
restaurateurs that are implementing a greater number of measures, the
hotels in Los Cabos that are distributing mouth covers and taking
measures to promote healthy distance, gel; In
the Catholic Church, the Bishop in La Paz is taking measures, in this
regard he is going to stop and also his capacity and events, such as
baptisms, confirmations. Nothing else enter the parents to baptize and the godparents, for example, "said the state official.
CONTAGIO RECORD
Whether
or not the determination to remain at the same differentiated traffic
light is good or not, especially that La Paz and Los Cabos remain at the
Orange traffic light, is something that has displeased the population.
The
authority was ignorant, while there was a political rally a few meters
from the COVID sampling, the agglomeration and euphoria reigned in that
event, and a few meters away the pain and despair took over other
families.
“Mulegé,
Loreto and Comondú in Level 3 of Health Alert, which corresponds to
Yellow; Los Cabos and La Paz in Level 4, continues all this week in the
Health Alert System, this based on the numeraries and all the variants
that we were analyzing. Los Cabos is a little alarmed right now, because
it hadn't been like that; La Paz had been and also something very
important: the number of hospitalized have been stable, the
epidemiological profile of hospitalized patients is changing, previously
more than 50% were 60 years old and more those who were hospitalized,
now the number of hospitalized 60 years and over dropped to 30%, and
increased the number of younger patients, "said the Secretary of Health.
Everyone
knew the risk involved in the campaigns, but no one did anything to fix
it. “The behavior of COVID cases by epidemiological week, Week 21
closes with 689 cases that we had predicted will close with around 600, a
little more than expected. Week 22 that closes next Saturday has 1,035
cases, it is forecast to close below 1,400. Week 23 has 882 cases as of
today, and it is forecast to close below Week 22, since we bring a
playback speed of 0.95 for Week 24; the rate of contagion this week is
already contagious downward, ”explained epidemiologist Miguel Romero
Calderón.
“In
the index of cases registered daily, from being in an index of 38 daily
cases in the State on June 7, they begin to rise from the second week
of June, on June 8, 9 and 10 having the highest peak in the State, just
above 210 cases. In Los Cabos there was an increase of 150 cases that
same day; La Paz that day decreases in relation to Week 8, which had 83
cases to 50 cases, it remains stable until Week 12, which has a slight
increase until June 12 ”, he explained.
“Los
Cabos maintains an unstable growth, on June 11 it presents 197 cases,
it begins to decrease in an accelerated way to reach 51 cases; On
the 14th there is an increase to 84 cases, but the crisis was observed
this week, the second week of June, which runs from June 8 to 12, we had
the highest number of cases and it increases the number of active cases
the State ”, stated Romero Calderón.
During
Week 23, 16 deaths were registered: 13 in Los Cabos and three in La
Paz, numbers that the South municipality had not registered, where
pregnant women positive for COVID-19 are added.
"Currently
we have eight confirmed pregnant COVID patients who are ambulatory,
four hospitalized, we have a death of a pregnant woman this year in the
month of January," Romero recalled.
DANGER ZONE
The
economy of Los Cabos is at risk, and not because the businessmen cannot
or there is no support, but rather that the pandemic got out of
control, and, although they do not want to recognize it, having more
than 80% of hospital occupancy is a reflection that something is wrong.
The
fact that businessmen have taken to the streets, to the neighborhoods
with the highest incidence to distribute protection supplies, offers an
important reading: there is concern that the Cabeña community will
return to the Red traffic light, the numbers mark it.
“What
are the areas with the greatest epidemiological problems in Los Cabos:
we have identified the Las Palmas, Lomas Altas, Los Cangrejos, Miramar
neighborhoods; in the San
José area, the center is the one with the greatest problems and Lomas de
Guaymitas and El Zacatal ”, acknowledged Blanca Pulido Medrano, head of
the State Commission for the Protection against Sanitary Risks
(Coepris).
Regarding
the number of infections and hospitalized patients, Los Cabos is
experiencing the worst health crisis, maintaining the highest number of
positive cases for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, but today the southern area is
the one that is full of cases and they continue to grow.
Although the State Health Safety Committee assures that the cases will go down, the damage has already been done.
“In
this work, together with Coepris and the Epidemiology area, fortunately
we do not have a circumscribed outbreak, it would be a critical
problem. These cases that
are being presented, we know where they come from, and what we are going
to do is: the Los Cabos Business Council is working with all the
agencies to carry out operations to reduce this, ”said Pulido Medrano.
The complaints were immediate and, through citizen social networks, they demand that the authority stop the infections.
THE CONTAGES WOULD CONTINUE
The
State Health Safety Committee recognizes that the indices are going to
be maintained, they could even exceed forecasts even more.
“Let
us remember that, even so, this week due to the natural period of the
disease, we could remain stable or even have some rallies, some days,
especially associated with the June 6 voting. It
would be reflected for ten days later, after June 16, 17 and 18, it
could be reflected in the meeting that the Committee will have next
week, "said Miguel Romero Calderón.
Contrary
to the epidemiologist, Víctor George Flores was a little more
conservative, since the entity has not reached the rates that the
pandemic had shown on other occasions, however, he does not particularly
mention the case of Los Cabos, a town that exceeds the registration
records.
It
is not necessary to minimize the problem, the situation is already
beyond the health services and at some point it will explode.
“The
numbers have not arrived as we had previously in Naranja, we are
confident that we are going to move forward with this, but this response
that we are having from some organized groups that are working to limit
and in a very respectful, conscious and solidarity, taking care of the
Cabeños, the South Californians. Right now the red dots are Los Cabos and La Paz ”, reiterated the head of the State Health Secretariat.
Even
the Los Cabos City Council itself acted long before the State Health
Safety Committee by reducing the number of personnel, only the essential
basic currently operates. The rest of the workers were sent to make a home office , as the only way to reduce capacity and avoid more infections.
“The
City Council itself took the necessary measures, without having the
restrictions of the Committee, but already out of conscience,
solidarity, it took measures to reduce this mobility everywhere. He
is paying to improve health, we are going to get ahead, without hitting
the economy and without paying just for sinners ”, George Flores
concluded."
"As of May, the murder rate in Tijuana practically matched last year's, yet state-level murders remain unstoppable.
According
to official figures from the State Security and Investigation Guard
(GESI) and the State Attorney General's Office (FGE), in May 2021 a
total of 177 murders were reported in Tijuana.
So far this year, the total number is 835 homicides: January, 180 homicides; February 151; March 163; April 164; and 177 in May.
According
to the same authorities, from January to May 2020, 841 homicides were
committed in Tijuana, only six more than in the first five months of
this year.
One of the most exposed homicides was that of the Japanese restaurant owner Taro Yoshira, 43, owner of the Yoshi Ramen restaurant , which is located in Playas de Tijuana.
An
employee of the restaurant reported that on the morning of May 13, he
noticed that the safe where there were around 30 thousand pesos was
open; It was then that he went up to the second floor and found his boss dead, who had been shot in the neck.
The
authorities indicated that neither the locks or the doors were forced,
so it is presumed that it was a robbery with violence.
“Tijuana
has brought red flags for a long time, they are not exclusive to recent
months, we have been dragging them (situations of highs and lows); Unfortunately,
the problem is far and wide in our city, ”said Juan Manuel Hernández
Niebla, president of the Baja California Public Safety Citizen Council.
At
the state level, in 2020, up to the month of May, 1,162 murders had
been registered, while until May of this year 1,300 have been committed,
which represents a considerable increase.
The municipalities where there has been a greater increase are Tecate and Ensenada.
From January to May 2020, Tecate registered a total of 41 homicides; In the same period, in 2021, a total of 146 have been counted.
In
relation to Ensenada, from January to May 2020, 138 violent deaths were
committed, while in 2021, until the last day of May, 184 murders were
reported."
House
robberies, shops, rapes, homicides, drug dealing, illegal deprivation
of liberty and extortion have doubled in 2021. In less than six months,
there were 190 homicides in the port city
"The
number of homicides in Ensenada reached 190 cases in the first five
months of 2021, surpassing the historical number reported in the same
period of the previous year, with 138 murders.
The
version of the state authorities, including that of Mayor Armando Ayala
Robles, is that high-impact crimes are due to struggles for control of
drug dealing and trafficking.
The
criminal gangs identified by those who make up the tables of the
Coordination Tables for Peace are divided between those who lead the
Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) and Sinaloa cartels.
Added
to this wave of murders is a phenomenon related to the increase in
violence to carry out robberies and assaults on businesses in the city,
which, according to investigating agents of the State Attorney General's
Office (FGE) who spoke with ZETA , have a higher level of aggressiveness.
"Never
before have employees or customers who are in a business been as close
to a firearm as in recent months", so they have been attentive to the
physical characteristics of the assailants.
"They
are not addicted people, but men with the ability and physically
healthy, skilled in the use of weapons," said the interviewee.
Recidivism
is a problem faced by the agents, since the crime of robbery is not
considered serious, therefore, if the aggressor is arrested, he must
cover the amount of damage to the victim to obtain freedom again.
The cases of armed robbery on public roads and in shops are constant; In the last 24 hours of June 9, at least four cases occurred without reporting detainees.
At
1:42 p.m. on Wednesday, a call was received to report a robbery with
violence in a business in the town of Puerta Trampa, Ojos Negros
Delegation. The complainant stated that two men with firearms threatened her with death, and later deprived her of the day's earnings.
An hour earlier, at local number 3 in Plaza Primavera, on the Transpeninsular Highway in Colonia Aeropuerto, employees of a Financiera TCP business were victims of a robbery with violence, when a man with a firearm entered threateningly.
The day before, at 05:59 hours on Tuesday, June 8, a call was received from an employee of a 7 Eleven store on
the Ensenada-Tijuana-San Miguel highway, reporting how two armed
subjects approximately 1.70 meters tall, With their faces uncovered,
they stripped them of the money from the safe (one thousand pesos),
wallets and a cell phone.
They also asked one of the customers for the keys to a white 2018 Renault Duster truck , which was parked outside the establishment.
Later, at 10:00 pm at Little Caesar's pizzeria in
Reforma and San Marcos, Fraccionamiento Nueva Ensenada, the employees
were surprised when a man entered the store and pointed a firearm; after demanding the cash, he withdrew.
While
the Municipal Public Security Directorate (DSPM) promotes the use of
panic buttons, which are not fully endorsed by members of the National
Chamber of Commerce, the trend of violent robberies does not stop.
CULTURE OF NON-COMPLAINT
The
total incidence of robberies from homes, businesses, rapes, homicides,
drug dealing, illegal deprivation of liberty and extortion, have
remained in the same trend in the last two years, with 3,700 crimes
during 2020 and 3,696 in the course of 2021.
Data
from the Citizen Council of Public Safety (CCSP) refer that, in the
current year, 93 business robberies have been reported to the Public
Ministry, of which 66 were committed with the luxury of violence, either
with a sharp weapon or fire .
On
public roads there were at least 147 assaults on pedestrians or people
traveling in their units in different areas of the city.
In
2016, the New Criminal Justice System proposed new rules for the police
elements of the three levels of government, such as filling in the
Approved Police Report (IPH). Generally, municipal officers are the first respondents to complete the filling, which takes up to two hours to complete.
In
the case of a robbery victim in the Maneadero delegation, she made a
report to 911, the Municipal Police arrived - which by law has the
obligation to file the complaint and IPH, as well as conduct the
interview.
The woman, who lives in a house in the Durango neighborhood in Maneadero, found a subject inside her house stealing the wiring. He
carried out his report via C4, a municipal agent arrived to draw up the
minutes but, instead of carrying out the IPH and taking it to the
Public Ministry to initiate an investigation, he asked the affected
person to contact the MP to file a complaint.
The
woman never went to file a complaint, therefore, the crime was not
investigated nor is it part of the statistics of robbery from a house
that the GESI manages in Baja California.
OFFENDERS DO NOT CHANGE THEIR CLOTHES
Regarding
the actions to inhibit the problem of robberies and assaults in the
port, the operational deputy director of the DSPM, José Luis Peralta,
assured that they are working in a coordinated manner with the three
levels of government.
These are weekly operations in which, with information from C4, what they call top colonies is evaluated , where the National Defense Secretariat (SEDENA) is in charge of the strategy.
For
example, in Ensenada the most problematic neighborhoods in terms of
crime rates are Maneadero, Zona Centro, Valle Dorado, Popular 89 and the
Wine Route in Valle de Guadalupe.
Peralta
talks about patrols and proximity with three shifts in these
conflictive areas, also, of distributing panic buttons among businesses
in the municipality; To date, 26 teams have been delivered.
The
official acknowledged the problem of the revolving door, where the
offenders of crimes considered not serious, are processed as an
administrative offense and are released by the judge when they manage to
restore the damage to the victims. In addition, they have identified criminals, especially those who carry out robberies at Oxxo convenience stores .
" We have direct contact with them ( Oxxo
), who share their cameras of the establishments and images with us,
then we distribute the information to the commanders to identify them on
the streets," he said.
In
the case of convenience stores, they found that the assailants usually
wear the same clothes, that is, they do not change their shoes,
sweatshirts or shirts.
IT'S AN UNEMPLOYMENT PROBLEM: CANACO
Rafael
Chávez, president of the National Chamber of Commerce in Ensenada, said
that the recent thefts perpetrated in the port are due to an
unemployment problem:
"This
pandemic has left many people without jobs, people who do not have
work, continue to have needs and compensate them in that way.
He
stated that such subjects "are not thieves, they do not know how to
steal, their point of reference is only movies or series, that is why
they are so nervous, because they are not professionals."
Coupled
with the fear or tension between the owner and the offender at the time
of the robbery, they have a problem with the format of the laws, since a
judge releases them from jail with ease.
Therefore,
it is common for their associates to face the problem of recidivism,
they are aware of how vulnerable they are and they take their own
security measures.
Finally,
for the Chamber, the proposal to place more panic buttons by the DSPM
in any business is not feasible, because merchants are not prepared to
use them and “it is like using the telephone to report through the C4 ".
In
Tijuana, Valle Redondo, a large area of ranches, with large tracts of
uninhabited land, has been taken over by criminal groups that kidnap,
murder, traffic people, transfer drugs and terrorize the workers in the
vineyards, who pretend to ignore their presence to avoid problems.
Unguarded by the authorities and adjacent to the United States, it is an
illegal crossing point fought over and used by various criminal groups.
In that "no man's land" three wine workers were murdered. Local
authorities investigate the cell of Edwin Antonio Rubio López "El Max",
operator of the Sinaloa Cartel, as alleged perpetrators
"They were executed. According
to the position of the bodies, the three men were kneeling with their
faces against a wall when they received a bullet from a handgun to the
head. Their worn clothes
gave account of the humble work that they carried out in an agricultural
field dedicated to the pruning of grapevines.
The
investigators' first hypothesis is that a group of human and drug
traffickers "mistook them" for members of a rival drug trafficking cell
and murdered them on Thursday, May 27. Perhaps
the criminals were drugged, so they assumed that the two men in
tattered pants and shirts, who wore shoes without socks and accompanied a
third man in blue jeans and a dress shirt, were drug traffickers.
Something similar to what happened with Edgar Flores Santos officially identified as supervisor of Agriculture
and Pest Trapping for the Animal Health and Vegetable Inspection
Service (APHIS) of the United States Department of Agriculture, deprived
of liberty on September 30, 2020 in the vicinity of Rancho Las Uvas and
found murdered on October 1 in the “Chupacabras” canyon of Valle
Redondo, of the Presa Rural delegation in Tijuana.
In the case of Flores Santos, the arrested murderers confessed that because of his appearance and that he was driving a white Chevrolet Silverado pick-up - his unit in charge - they believed he was a policeman and killed him.
For
this reason, the same criminal group that riddled the consular officer
eight months ago is now one of the main suspects in the triple homicide
of farm workers.
VERSIONS OF DEPRIVATION AND DEATH
The
first reports regarding the disappearance of Uriel Mora Vidal,
Dagoberto Escalante Olivas and Juan Cuahua Tlehuactle were confusing. The
initial version indicated that elements of the State Security and
Investigation Guard (GESI) or the National Guard had taken them away at
11:00 am on May 27.
Later they said that the workers had left early to the creek area to activate an irrigation pump. At noon, the families of the rancherías saw a white pick-up with armed men circulating in the area . The
families took refuge in their homes, but when they heard gunshots, they
began to worry about the three men who had not returned and called the
police.
They
detailed that municipal police and the National Guard arrived at the
scene and walked around for approximately two hours, but found nothing
and left. Around
5:00 p.m., the mother-in-law of one of the disappeared received an
anonymous call, saying where they could find the bodies.
The
owners of the ranches requested the support of the GESI and the State
Attorney General's Office (FGE) to locate the bodies, but the Tijuana
Municipal Police reported having found them at 5:40 p.m. on the same
Thursday.
According to the report, three men were found face down with gunshot wounds to the head. A reporter gave them directions as to where the lifeless people were.
The
personnel responsible for processing the crime scene of the FGE arrived
almost two hours later, they reported that the bodies were located
inside "a ruined black construction site, located on a local road in
Rancho El Remolino" with a handgun shot to the skull.
According
to the ballistic analysis, the FGE, the weapon or pistols used against
the workers, had not been used in a previous crime in Baja California,
while the version of the relatives indicates that the three employees
left at six in the morning from their houses (“they were going for
water”). At one
point in the morning - which they did not specify - they saw a gray
truck driving through the ranches and inside hooded people carrying long
weapons.
They
went out to look for the disappeared - again they did not need time -
and found a tractor with boats that had not been filled with water, at
that moment they heard gunshots and returned to their houses to hide, to
call the security personnel who in turn it was communicated to the
emergency numbers.
The
relative of one of the men dialed the cell phone of one of the victims,
they answered and only the voice was heard - they did not understand
what it was saying - and the laughter of a woman before they hung up.
Later, around 12:20 p.m., residents of the area again saw a gray pick-up driving through the ranch and inside it a woman of approximately 22 years old.
Later, the anonymous call would be given at 5:00 p.m. and the location of the bodies an hour later.
NO MAN'S LAND
The
area where Mora Vidal, Escalante Olivas and Cuahua Tlehuactle were
deprived of their liberty and later assassinated, has registered owners,
some invaders and lawsuits claiming ownership in the Baja California
Courts.
"It is a land without Law where violence worsened at the end of 2019," they describe.
Employees
who had 20, 15 and 10 years working on the ranches in the area, were
threatened and resigned in the last four months of the previous year,
while the owners have not been able to hire new people because "they are
afraid."
Mobility
out of fear has also affected Rancho Las Uvas, even recently they had
decided that one of the three murdered men would be appointed
administrator-foreman, since he had been unoccupied for many months.
The
residents, owners and workers of that area expressed fear of traveling
the land. In fact, on the day of the multiple homicide, the
mother-in-law of one of the victims received an anonymous call informing
that the missing men were already dead and were going to be found by
the stream, but neither the desperate families nor the security
personnel of the ranch they dared to look for them.
The area in question is a wide expanse of land that includes Las Uvas, La Escondida, El Remolino ranches and the Dart company land .
The main entrance is right in the vicinity of the company, on the
Tijuana Tecate toll road in Valle Redondo. The only point with a video
surveillance system, criminals know it and evade it. They all enter from
behind the factory, in fact, it seemed strange to the residents of the
area that when the Municipal Police and National Guard arrived, both
patrols entered the same route as the criminals.
At
the height of the aforementioned ranches, the double mesh on the
American side is finished, which facilitates the illegal crossing of
people and drugs. "The
strangest thing is that this happens every day at all hours, without
Mexican or United States corporations doing anything, so we no longer
know where to turn, we have asked for patrols and operations in the
ranches, but nothing", locals commented.
CRIMINAL CELLS
There
is a distance of three kilometers between the Tijuana-Tecate highway
and the border with the United States, the bodies of the three workers
cultivating the vine for Zinfandel wine were located 500 meters from the
mesh that divides the two countries. more than 100 meters from the bed
of the Arroyo Alamar.
On
October 2, 2020, after the death of the US official at the conclusion
of the public act by which he handed over 76 rented patrols to the GESI,
the State Attorney General, Juan Guillermo Ruiz Hernández, assured in a
bench conference: the presence of the Municipal Police because
throughout that area, Valle Redondo, there is a flow of migrants from
the United States and it is complicated.
The
most recent public operation carried out by Grupo Beta in this crossing
area, was publicized precisely seven months ago, shortly after the
murder of the Consulate official, on the night of October 5, when they
rescued a family of migrants - mother, father and two small children-,
who were abandoned in the mountainous area of Rancho Las Uvas. The woman had to be extracted by helicopter because she had a pelvic fracture.
“But
after that, nothing”, assured the residents of the area, “neither the
municipalities, nor the state, the National Guard or the Beta. Even
more worrying, not even those of ICE (Immigration and Customs
Enforcement Service, an agency of the United States Department of
Homeland Security), seem to have agreements ”, they expressed scared and
worried.
"Criminals come and go like Pedro through his house,
terrorizing the good people, on the day of the three deaths we were
marking and marking the prosecutor, and nothing," added a representative
of the owners of the ranches.
When
the authorities on the other side of the border were consulted, they
indicated that the area in question is used by several groups that are
dedicated to human trafficking, but they highlighted the group of "Los
Maldonados" or "Los Emes", identified after three of the Maldonado Mejía
brothers were arrested or killed.
However,
this information was refuted by the FGE, the representatives of the
ministerial authority admitted "Los Emes" as a group of human
traffickers that continues with another brother who has not yet been
fully identified and is moving people from Pachuca and Michoacán, but
currently it only operates in Mexicali.
So
in the case of the three vine workers, investigators are targeting
local criminals, but eight days have gone by with no results. Very
different from what happened in the case of the investigation of the
homicide of the foreign official, in which one of the accomplices of his
homicide was arrested less than 24 hours after the body was located.
According
to the organization charts held by the Baja California Peace and
Security Coordination Table, three criminal groups have a presence in
the area:
Daniel Isaac Ortiz Covarrubias "El Moreno". Originally
operator of the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel, which the authorities
recently assure has sought to ally with "Los Chapitos."
Manuel Rodríguez García "The Profe". Leader
of scavengers in the East Zone of Tijuana, he has survived three armed
attacks, without an arrest warrant against him, but mentioned by the
Intelligence areas from the 2008-2015 period as part of the groups
dedicated to drug trafficking.
Edwin Antonio Rubio López "El Max". Sinaloa Cartel Operator.
Investigators
consider the cell of this head of retail traffickers as the main
suspects, despite the fact that Rubio's base of operations is in Las
Villas, almost 7 kilometers from Las Uvas, but according to statements
by his accomplices already captured, This man controls groups that
commit crimes from the La Presa and Presa Rural delegation in Tijuana to
Tecate.
In addition, "El Max" is the criminal boss of those arrested for the murder of the consular employee in the same ranchería: Juan Carlos“N”,
24 years old, captured on October 1, 2020 in the operation carried out
minutes after they found the body of Edgar Flores; once secured, the
subject admitted that he belonged to a cell dedicated to human
trafficking and that they had confused the American. Ivis Yuvinny
Escobar Salgado "El Vikingo", apprehended January 27, 2021 in possession
of drugs and charged with murder. Juan Luis Pérez Longuinez "El Pikul",
arrested on March 31 of this year after a manhunt and shooting that
occurred outside Tecate, near Rancho La Puerta. Besides Yossio Quiñonez
Armenta “El Pariente”. The authorities also implicate him in the
quadruple homicide registered in Tecate in 2020.
Witnesses
to the journeys of the armed criminals and fellow farmers, said that
the men were doing nothing but work, “they should not have lost their
lives when they were only doing their work effort”, and they claimed:
“They leave three families helpless ”.
They
say they are aware that where they live and work is a community very
affected by violence, "but we do not understand why they were deprived
of their liberty and took their lives."
The
family of one of the victims left Baja California with the man's body
to their homeland, while the other two are also thinking of leaving the
area."
On
the afternoon of May 30, the tourist area of the port was dyed red
after a shooting that lasted through several streets, leaving two people
dead and three wounded. The
atypical homicidal behavior in the region, mobilized the authorities to
the small port community, whose main hypothesis is that cells close to
"Los Chapitos" intend to take advantage of the power vacuum and seize
the plaza located in San Felipe, so that fishermen expand its operations
to the transfer of drugs
"The
calm of the port of San Felipe was interrupted by high-caliber shrapnel
on Sunday, May 30, when in the middle of the afternoon, gunmen fired at
their discretion at two vehicles manned by fishermen -some of them
identified as suspected totoaba traffickers- who they traveled through
the main roads of the community.
The
shooting took place in front of dozens of people who were walking
through the busiest area of the port and just behind the offices of
the Criminal Justice Center, where the base of the State Investigation
Agency (AEI) and the respective ministries are also located. public
attached to the community.
In
the incident, the names Brandon Nathanael Zazueta Lozano, 25 years old,
and Jorge Luis Armenta Hernández, 27 years old, were killed. Rolando
Reyna Lizárraga, 30 years old; Alfonso Guadalupe Rivera Castro, 22; and Miguel Ángel Álvarez Niebla, 25, the last two, originally from Culiacán Sinaloa.
As
a result of the arrest of the alleged leaders of the cells dedicated to
the trafficking of totoaba, Óscar Parra Aispuro, in September 2018 and
Segundo Valenzuela and Juan Luis García Ruiz alias “La Yegua” in
November 2020, in an operation led by the Office of the Assistant
Attorney General Specialized in Organized Crime Investigation (SEIDO)
for which Eduardo Gastón Parra-Óscar's brother-, Sunshine Rodríguez
Peña, former president of the Federation of Riparian Fishing
Cooperatives, were also apprehended; the former inspector of the Federal
Attorney for Environmental Protection, Enrique García Sandez; Luis
Aldaz Valenzuela and his wife Carmen Ávila Hernández - both acquitted
for not having a single piece of evidence linking them to organized
crime - created a power vacuum.
This
scenario is intended to be exploited by members of the criminal
structure of "Los Chapitos", Iván Archivaldo and Alfredo Guzmán Salazar,
sons of Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán Loera, which already occupies the
Gulf of Santa Clara as a base of operations, where they arrive boats
with drugs, but now they intend to expand their operations to San Felipe
to control the entire coast and completely seize a drug route.
The
next municipality of Baja California, has just over 24 thousand
inhabitants, whose main income historically has been fishing and
commerce. As a result of
the restrictions on the extraction of marine animals from the Upper Gulf
of California, it has been involved in a severe economic crisis, but
the fishing of endemic animals such as the totoaba macdonaldi , whose value ranges between 4,000 and 8,000 , has also proliferated. dollars, and according to information from previous Security Tables, increases in international markets.
LA BALACERA IN THE HEART OF SAN FELIPE
It
was around 3:00 p.m. when emergency calls were issued to 911 to report
that on Mar Báltico Sur street, between Ensenada and Puerto Manzanillo, a
few meters from the San Felipe Criminal Justice Center, a shooting had
occurred in the The crew of a Cherokee- type vehicle , a black Chevrolet Silverado and a gray Chevrolet Tahoe truck participated .
Members
of the Tables for the Construction of Peace have not been able to
define in detail the chronology of the events, since the victims who
survived have not provided sufficient details.
Both vehicles were traveling on said road, when at the aforementioned point they were intercepted by a gray Chevrolet Tahoe truck , from which hitmen opened fire with high-caliber weapons.
The crew of the gray Grand Cherokee truck , California license plates, were attacked by hitmen who were traveling in the Tahoe, opening fire and causing the vehicle to leave the street and stop in the dune area of the port. There,
the name Brandon Nathanael Zazueta Lozano, 25, died, who was
accompanied by another individual who went to a hotel in the area to
request the support of the authorities due to an arm injury.
After the attack, the crew of the black Chevrolet Silverado vehicle fled
at high speed, unleashing a chase that lasted to Chetumal street and
intersection with Mar Caribe, right at the roundabout located at the
entrance to the port of San Felipe, where another blast of bullets hit
several targets; the glass
and the bodywork were punctured and the victims suffered considerable
injuries from the impacts of .223 caliber weapons.
The
car in which those responsible fled was found burning some streets
within the port community, so firefighters had to go to mitigate the
flames before starting the investigations.
Among
the victims, it is presumed that the main target was Rolando Reyna
Lizárraga, 30, known as “El Rolly”, alleged former operator of Óscar
Parra Aispuro's criminal structure, identified by members of the
Construction Security Tables de la Paz, as one of the possible
applicants to operate the criminal structure of the new “Cartel del
Mar”; the other character is Marco Alfonso Pacheco Lares, about whom there is not much information.
Reyna Lizárraga is investigated as an alleged operator of a totoaba trafficking group in San Felipe. Inside
the vehicle where he was traveling, a .9-millimeter caliber firearm was
found, according to the report from the Directorate of Expert Services
that collected evidence at the scene.
LOS CHAPITOS", MAIN SUSPECT
In
addition to the trafficking of endemic species, the port of San Felipe
and the Gulf of Santa Clara are places frequented by drug traffickers
that facilitate the passage of drugs by sea.
The
Guzmán Salazar brothers' favorite route is precisely that of the Upper
Gulf, where their boats arrive from Sinaloa to later transfer them to
the United States, but they also use the entire coastal area of San
Felipe.
This
area has a highly profitable route when moving along a dirt road at the
height of “El Chinero”, when passing the military checkpoint on the
Mexicali-San Felipe highway and rejoining the road until reaching the
State Capital; Or, moving from "El Chinero" to the Valley of Trinidad or Ojos Negros, to finally reach Ensenada and take the drug to Tijuana.
Although
they already resorted to this route on occasions, it is difficult for
them to transfer and unload them without the support of people who live
in what will be the seventh municipality of Baja California, so they
sought to align alleged totoaba traffickers to take advantage of their
structures and facilitate the discharge and transfer of crystal and fentanyl.
Precisely two weeks ago, elements of the Mexican Army seized a ton of glass and 27 kilograms of fentanyl that were transferred in two vehicles that were later abandoned; it is presumed that the drug belonged to "Los Chapitos."
THEY DID NOT LINE UP TO THE GUZMÁN
In
addition to Reynaldo, after the arrest of the heads of the totoaba
traffic in San Felipe, other characters became targets of Baja
California authorities, such as Jesús Alejandro Obeso Pérez alias “El
Fredy”, a remnant of the “El Parra” cell; and Alejandro Peña, a fisherman leader with political relations within the port.
They
are part of that structure that has refused to work with "Los
Chapitos", since not all fishermen have an interest in venturing into
the drug trafficking business or subordinating themselves to external
groups, so it is presumed that the attack on these five people was an
act of pressure to assassinate obstacles and force others to line up.
Days
before the attack on the five people in San Felipe, an emergency report
was issued about an alleged discussion and shooting on the beach. The offended did not provide many details for the investigation of the case, but confirmed the fact.
Groups
close to "Los Chapitos" tried to get fishermen to support the transfer
of drugs, but they refused, which led to the discussion and subsequent
shooting. Similar behavior
occurred in the Gulf of Santa Clara, in Sonora, where on April 1, a
group of unknown persons intentionally set fire to at least seven houses
of fishermen who also did not want to work for "Los Chapitos."
Military
intelligence reports describe Jesús Aurelio Ibarra Ramiro, a Mexicali
resident, who operates for the Guzmán brothers in the Gulf of Santa
Clara, as the main suspect in these attacks in the Gulf, an area that
they have already fully identified as a base of operations, where they
can gunmen and lieutenants from Caborca, Sonora, take refuge to support
mafia actions in this area near the border wall with the United States.
Sources
from the Security Tables for the Construction of La Paz state that
Aurelio Ibarra Ramiro is in charge of receiving drugs in the Gulf and is
subordinate to an individual named Adán Quintero, alias “El 74”.
These
types of actions are part of the strategy of "Los Chapitos" to seize
the entire coastal area of the Upper Gulf and the drug trafficking
route, where they could also appropriate endemic species."
~~~~~~
Remember when San Quintin was a dreamy camp/surf spot with crystal clear and clean ocean water? So far this year at the beginning of May, I'm counting 10 executions with attacks on the authorities; this one makes eleven down, another kidnapped:
"On
the morning of this Wednesday, June 9, two separate violent events were
recorded in the municipality of San Quintín, where one person lost his
life and another apparently was deprived of liberty.
The
first was at 06:33 hours on Emiliano Zapata street in the Vicente
Guerrero delegation, it was reported through the 911 emergency line that
subjects were following an individual through a property located one
block from the Liconsa store.
Upon
arrival, the municipal public security elements found the man lying
with several injuries from a firearm, for which they called emergency
services who declared him without vital signs.
Officials
from the State Attorney General's Office (FGE) arrived at the scene to
collect evidence and initiate the corresponding investigation into the
murder.
In
a separate case, on one side of the Kenton volcano, on the local road
towards La Chorera, a strong mobilization was generated for a legal
matter related to the restitution of a property in that area.
Around
9:00 a.m., a report was recorded about firearm detonations on the way
to the oyster in San Quintín, at the height of the volcanoes.
According
to the report, civilians raised a male person who is related to the
same issue of property restitution, the authorities have not ruled out
this version.
In
the area of the volcanoes there are municipal and state elements, as
well as the Secretariat of National Defense (SEDENA) and the National
Guard."
"In the last hours in Tijuana, eight homicides were registered, three of the female victims and three were burned. With these events, there are 131 intentional deaths in June and 961 so far in 2021.
At
around 09:46 a.m. on Friday, June 18, in an abandoned property on Valle
Bonito street in the Vistas del Valle neighborhood, charred human
remains were found. According to the report, the emergency center was
denounced about the fact which was corroborated by municipal
authorities, who requested the presence of elements of the Prosecutor's
Office to carry out the corresponding procedures.
Then
at the edge of noon, an unidentified woman was killed by a firearm
projectile when she was walking on Paseo Reforma and Article 27 streets
in the Esperanza neighborhood. The victim, who was wearing denim shorts,
a blue blouse, black tennis shoes and a backpack, was left lying in the
road with injuries to the head and abdomen. Elements of the Red Cross
arrived at the site, who determined that the lady no longer had vital
signs. Four ballistic evidence was found at the crime scene.
Subsequently,
in room number 308 of the Hotel Villas de Santiago located on Antigua
Internacional street, corner of Lomas de la Misión, a woman of around 30
years of age was found dead, who so far has not been identified. The
victim had injuries, apparently, caused by a sharp weapon to the head
and chest. Hotel personnel told the authorities that the female person
was found lying on the floor of the room, semi covered with two towels
and with the naked eye, traces of violence could be seen.
The semi-calcined body of a woman was found on Libramiento Sur and Second Street in the El Soler neighborhood. According
to the report, around 03:30 am on Saturday 19, the emergency center was
informed that, apparently, the remains of a person were under flames,
so firefighters came to the scene, who When they extinguished the fire,
they confirmed that it was the corpse of a woman.
Also
this morning, a man was found dead on an uninhabited property at Calle
Real de Baja California in the Real de San Francisco neighborhood. The unidentified victim, approximately 25 years old, had gunshot wounds to the head. Five casings were collected at the site.
Then,
on Boulevard 2000 in the Puerta de Plata neighborhood, it was reported
that a sedan-type vehicle was on fire, so firefighters came to the scene
and after putting down the accident they discovered that a burned
person was in the trunk of the car.
Finally,
around 08:00 hours, two men were attacked with bullets when they were
in a taco stand located on Lucrecia Toriz street in the Castillo
neighborhood. The victims were left lying next to the mobile food cart. Red Cross paramedics arrived at the scene, who after checking the wounded declared them dead at the scene.
In none of the events are detained persons reported."
~~~~~
I have a feeling that the State Department would not only like you to reconsider even coming here, but reconsider seriously...listening to them.
