THE BORDER REPORT

With choir music playing in the background, the camera pans over the police commander’s proud face, his dark eyes piercing from under a camouflage hat, out in the yellowing mountain grasses east of Nogales, Sonora.

“For men like Juan Manuel Pavón Felix, who sacrifice their own lives for the benefit of everyone, you can only say, until later,” a soft voice intones.

The video was produced by the Sonoran government, a final testament to the director of the Sonoran State Police who died in early November in Nogales.

But enough with the sentiments; the man is dead. And nobody’s asking any questions about how he arrived to this condition.

So let’s backtrack a couple weeks, and re-trace the man’s final day.

According to police, Pavón Felix was staying at the Marques de Cima Hotel in Nogales. The killers rolled up Highway 15 about 8 at night. They distracted the state police in front of the hotel with a machine gun and grenade attack. The cops rushed to the entrance of the hotel, they took cover behind the police trucks and returned fire on the killers.

The setup of the hotel is important to the story. The entrance faces east and there is an enormous wall surrounding the other three sides. Outside, the wall is surrounded by hills some 30-40 feet high.

The hotel building is a U-shape, an enormous five-storey horseshoe. Pavón was staying in a room on the outside of the U-shape, facing north. He was staying on the third floor. Directly across the hotel parking lot, there is a breach in the hotel wall. I’ve walked around the hotel enough times to note it is the only breach in the wall.

While the killers distracted the police officers at the entrance, two men came around the side of the hotel and scrambled up the hill, outflanking the cops’ defenses.

They stood at the breach and looked straight across the parking lot at Pavón as he came out of his hotel room. As he ran down the balcony toward the gunfight, one man raised a rifle and set the crosshairs right on Pavón’s heart. He died in the hospital minutes later, one shot.

While this was happening, Mexican Customs called the U.S. Customs and Border Protection to inform them they weren’t going to allow traffic to enter Mexico; they were temporarily closing the southbound lanes and asked the U.S. to help deter traffic elsewhere.

They weren’t worried about anyone escaping north, mind you, for whatever reason, they were worried about someone else coming in. Maybe they were concerned about new participants, maybe not.

When I asked, law enforcement officials on both sides of the border tell me that the Mexicans were worried about tourists being hurt and that’s why they closed southbound traffic.

The gunfight was three miles from the tourist zone, at 8 o’clock on a Sunday night. The next night, a three hour gunfight went down against Pavón’s alleged killers. At 10 p.m., the U.S. was called again and asked to help keep away Mexico bound traffic.

Again, tourist safety was the issue, everyone was told. At 10 p.m. on a Monday night.

Pavón’s death was a setup; and I won’t portend to understand the backroom schemings that led to his murder. Whether it was the Sinaloans, the Beltrán Leyva’s or … somebody else who engaged the setup is the question that should be asked.

Instead, we’re left with blank spots where answers should be. A major newspaper carried the story of his death and ran an image of the uniformed Pavón holding a puppy. Another showed him in all his bulletproof vested glory, his chest protruding like a gun turret.

Within two days, even those stories disappeared and Pavón’s death became another cipher of Mexico’s drug war.

Perhaps the man’s murder deserves a bit more attention than YouTubed grief.