THE BORDER REPORT

NOGALES, SONORA – A group of city councilmembers in Nogales have been not so quietly spreading a rumor that the city’s police chief will soon be out a job. The rumor started about three weeks ago and has hit some of the local newspapers this week, saying that Chief Arturo Ramirez Camacho has been lax in his job and so the city’s voting him out. Some elements of the accusations are true; though if you ask me, I think it’s more a matter of logistics than reality. Nogales’ homicide rate nearly doubled last year from the year before. Last week, a 67-year-old business owner, Jaime Ostler was gunned down outside his store in downtown. Eleven men, all claiming to be Zetas, were arrested. Even if the police department were interested in wiping out crime, they’re certainly not equipped to do so. Tourism is virtually destroyed in Nogales these days, much like Juárez, maybe more so since the city is so much smaller. One businessowner even shut down his club and is moving it north to Southern Arizona in hopes of bringing the business back. So in many ways, it makes a lot of sense to blame the director of public security for the disastrous result that Nogales has become. My problem with this is that I have all the doubt in the world that anyone new who takes the job is going to improve the situation anymore than Ramirez was able to. Go back to Tijuana for a moment and look what happened there. In 2007, a chamber of commerce figure, Alberto Capella, was leading marches against a level of violence and ineptitude that left even the residents of bloody Tijuana cold. The response against the chamber’s main man was a bit bizarre. Capella, with no law enforcement experience whatsoever, was appointed the director of public safety and everyone sat back to watch the show. Murders and kidnappings and gunfights spun out of control even by Tijuana’s standards. The Arellanos grew messy, fracturing and splintering into factions like warring tribes and Capella survived one year before being thrown out the door. Capella was a bit different. If you recall, he was labeled Tijuana’s Rambo after an incredible gunfight where he managed to fight off twenty armed men with a single AR-15 from inside his home. Yeah, I had my doubts. Every national and international news program and magazine in the western hemisphere tripped over each other trying to get an interview in with Tijuana’s “Rambo. What I didn’t have doubts about was Capella’s usefulness as a public figure. People were skeptical that the city would calm down while he was in office but at least there was a vague expectation that he would do no worse. Then the city council of Tijuana fired him, blaming him for the city’s violence. And now, it appears the Nogales city council is preparing to do the same to its chief of police. These elected officials know perfectly well that Nogales’ problems go far beyond the abilities of one man. Like most chiefs of police of Mexican cities, Ramirez is little more than a figurehead, someone to put up before citizens to applaud or to throw tomatoes at or to abuse or to cheer. I accept that, that’s Mexico. Maybe, arguably, that’s everywhere. But it makes me wonder at these city councilmembers and the press that’s been giving them voice. What’s happened in Nogales did not happen because of one man. It happened because of a patronage system, because of old family ties that range south to Culiacán and north to Phoenix. It happened because there’s a lot of dollars involved and you cannot stand in the way of the system. I’m not particularly concerned for Ramirez, he never really disappointed or impressed me. But now we see who these councilmembers want to bring into office. Now we see whom they want, and that, is going to be very interesting to watch.