THE BORDER REPORT
TIJUANA, B.C. – Soldiers stood watch over the house, their faces veiled behind Kevlar helmets and masks, machine guns gripped in their hands. A Special Forces soldier had been killed tonight, Oct. 15, in a gunfight with a rabid cell of drug traffickers moving against the Arellano Felix family.
There have been 128 killings from the end of September to now in the state, most of those a neat cluster in Tijuana. But on this night, the Army’s attention was clearly not centered on the
narcos, but rather, on the cops.
The killers mixed it up with soldiers near a Costco and a public school, fleeing onto the school grounds when it was clear the soldiers were over-powering them. Four of the killers made it to a safehouse in a quiet neighborhood, the home hidden behind a high steel wall. The soldiers, angry enough now that one of their own had gone down, finished the job, only taking one prisoner, no questions asked. A sixth body, that of a kidnap victim stuffed inside a meat freezer, completed the tally that night.
But it was the cops who had my attention. Armed federal agents and state police were kept outside of the house, a group of soldiers placed in front of them made certain of this.
Four hours after the gunfight, the Baja California delegate of the federal Attorney General’s Office arrived, the dark-suited figure moving quickly, stopping at the front gate to talk with Gen. Alfonso Duarte, commander of the Second Military Zone.
“Look at that,” says a colleague, a long-time political reporter who’s watched this tension grow over the past year. “They’re not letting the police go into the house.”
It was tricky to capture, no harsh words or shoving matches, or anything of the sort. But the tension hung over the battle scene like gunsmoke, thick and acrid.
The funeral service was the next day; soldiers lined up in formation under an immense Mexican flag, the Special Forces battalion roaring “
Todo por Mexico!” at the general’s command.
It was a grim, stirring ceremony. Angel Guadalupe Aguilar is the first Mexican soldier to die in Pres. Felipe Calderón’s campaign in Baja California.
The only entourage missing were city or state police.
Some say they weren’t invited to the funeral ceremony. Others say they chose not to come, staying clear of a military base where they weren’t wanted.
Recall the last general who had command over this city, Gen. Sergio Aponte. He engaged the region’s political leaders and public security forces in print, publishing their names and individual affiliations with the cocaine cartel.
Aponte didn’t last long, a bizarre gunshot in a restaurant in Mexicali was laid at his feet and he was quietly retired from military service.
I don’t know how long Gen. Duarte will last in this city.
He pushes against the politicos with small, insinuating attacks. One of the military’s tip hotlines is an email address, nosotrossivamos, implying that they’ll respond to the citizens’ call when nobody else will.
Clearly, the Army trusts no one in the region.
A law enforcement source, a ballistics investigator for state police, suggested one reason for this deep level of mistrust.
Sometimes, my man says, it’s the small details that tell the whole story.
Among the weapons cache seized that night were a 50-caliber machine gun, automatic weapons, a grenade and bulletproof vests and most interesting, two police-issue radios.
