South of the Border

[JALU3]

Down Mexico Way,
That where I fell in Love ...
Or so the song goes.

But today is a new reality, the reality is I wouldn't advise going south of the border.

Slayings Of 4 Americans In Mexico Spark Fear
Young U.S. Citizens Found Brutally Murdered In Mexico
Police Official: California Residents, Ages 19-23, Ran Into Wrong Crowd

TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) ― The slayings of four young Americans in Tijuana sowed fear in Southern California on Friday as Mexican prosecutors tried to determine whether the youths were involved in the country's violent drug trade or innocent victims of a brutal crime.

The victims, two men and two women in their teens and early 20s, said they were headed for a night of partying across the border only to be found strangled, stabbed and beaten a few days later.

Mexican officials are investigating whether any of the four San Diego-area victims had ties to the drug trade, after a toxicology report tested positive for cocaine on the body of Brianna Hernandez, who was either 18 or 19.

AP via CW-Sacramento

Ties to drugs?

Letter Could Be Key Evidence in Brutal TJ Slayings
By MICHELLE WAYLAND

Updated 11:20 AM PDT, Sat, May 16, 2009

Mexican officials are trying to determine whether four San Diego-area residents killed in Tijuana were involved in the country's violent drug trade or innocent victims of a brutal crime – and a letter could be a key piece of evidence.

Luis Gamez Junior, 22, Brianna Hernandez Aguilera, 19, Carmen Ramos-Chavez, 20, and Oscar Garcia Cota, 23, said they were headed for a night of partying across the border only to be found strangled, stabbed and beaten a few days later.

Mexican officials are investigating whether any of the four had ties to the drug trade, after a toxicology report tested positive for cocaine on the body of Brianna Hernandez Aguilera.

A letter sent to Hernandez Aguilera by a woman serving time in a California prison on a drug charge is a key piece of evidence in this case according to a published report.

Baja California Attorney General Rommel Moreno Manjarrez described the letter's tone as threatening in an interview with the San Diego Union-Tribune.

These Young Adults are graduates of Chula Vista High School, a part of my community that is older than where I live, and draw from portions that are mockingly refered to as Chulajuana. 89th largest city in the US, with a population that is almost 50% hispanic/latino, our community has many ties to our neighbors to the south.
Whether tied to drug cartel violence or not, any death in Tijuana hurts the joint metro area as a whole.

Furthermore, the violence and crime originating from South of the Border goes further than my city that is a mere 7 miles from the international frontier. CNN

Abducted California boy, 3, found in Mexico
updated 2 hours, 29 minutes ago

(CNN) -- A 3-year-old boy who was taken at gunpoint from his California home nearly two weeks ago has been found, authorities said Saturday.

Briant Rodriguez was found wandering the streets of Mexicali, Mexico, by a police officer late Thursday, said San Bernardino County Sheriff Rod Hoops.

After clearing paperwork with Mexican officials, California authorities reunited the boy with his mother Saturday in the border town of Calexico, Hoops said.

"We're very happy that he's alive," Hoops said. "A 3-year-old goes missing in this country for two weeks -- sometimes it has an unhappy ending.

"This one did not."

The boy had been missing since May 3, when two men armed with handguns burst into his family's home and tied him up -- along with his mother and four siblings.

The men ransacked the home before leaving with Briant, a small amount of cash and some personal property, San Bernardino sheriff's spokeswoman Cindy Beavers said.

Authorities had not caught the suspects as of Saturday evening. Hoops said authorities have information about at least two suspects -- who were captured on video at a home-improvement store near the Rodriguez home buying tape like the kind that was used to bind the family.

Unfortunatly abductions of people into Mexico is nothing new. And it's not getting any better for the authorities, with such things as armed extractions of prisoners.

However, on other fronts things are improving, for nature anyway.