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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | May 2007 
Report of Armed Convoy Alarms Naco
 Brady McCombs & Lourdes Medrano - Arizona Daily Star
| | A Naco, Sonora, police officer carries newly issued Berretta 9mm pistols into the back of the police station at the municipal building in Naco, Sonora. The weapons were issued to the officers along with AR-15 rifles like the one the officer is wearing. The weapons were already on order before the recent attack. (James Gregg/Arizona Daily Star) |
Naco, Sonora — A report of an armed convoy of drug cartel gunmen heading toward Cananea and Naco sent local residents scrambling for cover Friday as police and government officials in Sonora and Arizona braced themselves for another round of violence.
It turned out to be a false alarm, but the mobilization of law enforcement and the school and store closures in both Nacos illustrated the tension, fear and uncertainty that have overtaken the border region. Wednesday's deadly shootout near Cananea between drug gunmen and Mexican soldiers and police left 23 dead, including five police officers and two bystanders.
"What else can you think?" said Javier Perez, who owns a money exchange shop and liquor store in Naco, Sonora. "Three days ago, they killed 22 people, so I'm pretty sure they believe everything they hear."
The alert surfaced about 10 a.m. in Mexico and quickly spread to residents across Sonora and to law enforcement officials in the United States, who began taking steps to respond. Shortly after noon, the State Police in Mexico issued a statement saying it was just a rumor, and by about 2:30 p.m. U.S. officials had confirmed that no threat was present and called off operations.
Officials and residents on both sides of the border endured tension-filled hours as they sorted through fact and fiction.
"I didn't feel scared but I felt a little pressured," said Juan Alberto Bracamonte, police chief in Naco. "Not for my own life, but for the lives of my officers and the lives of the people of Naco."
At about 11 a.m., the Naco police were informed from a command center in Nogales that a caravan of 40 vehicles traveling between Cananea and Imuris had engaged in a gunfight with police. They were instructed to stay away from the police station, change into plain clothes, conduct patrols in civilian cars and prepare for anything, Bracamonte said. About 2 p.m., the police found out it was a false alarm, he said. They were continuing to patrol in plain clothes and non-police vehicles late Friday afternoon.
The U.S. Border Patrol heard about the situation from a "credible" source between 10 and 11 a.m. and began taking the steps necessary to ensure safety, said Gustavo Soto, Border Patrol Tucson Sector spokesman.
At about 11:30 a.m., a large number of Border Patrol agents arrived at the Naco port of entry and stood with M16s at the border and on the roof of the Customs and Border Protection building there, said Janet Warner, who works at the Gay 90s Bar, a few feet from the border in Naco, Ariz. The Border Patrol wouldn't discuss the tactical measures they took but confirmed that they took steps to ensure safety, Soto said.
The port of entry never closed but officers were on alert, said Brian Levin, Customs and Border Protection spokesman. For about an hour and a half in the late afternoon Mexico closed the port of entry to southbound vehicles but still allowed pedestrian crossings.
The Cochise County Sheriff's Office sent its SWAT team to the Border Patrol's Naco Station at 12:15 p.m. to support the agency, said spokeswoman Carol Capas. The Border Patrol told them its intent was to close the port and have agents along the border, she said, and the SWAT team was sent back to the station about 2:30 p.m. The Sheriff's Office plans to remain on heightened alert throughout the weekend, Capas said.
Residents in Naco, Sonora, heard about the supposed gunfight near Cananea by radio and were instructed on the airwaves to stay off the streets and take precautions because the gunmen could be heading their way, said Eduardo Gonzalez, who owns an ice cream store in Naco, Sonora. Schools there were evacuated about 11:30 a.m., said Gonzalez, who has four children. The school in Naco, Ariz., was also closed, said Warner.
Teacher Yogi Khalsa said: "A lot of of our students have relatives on the Mexican side of the border, so they were very worried. Some were very emotional — they were crying and trying to contact relatives."
All ended well, he said. Parents picked up some children, and buses transported the rest of the students home by about 2 p.m., including children who normally walk home.
In Naco, Sonora, many businesses closed and people were frightened when Perez returned to town at about 11:30 from Agua Prieta. Pete Brown, of Hereford, was making his monthly trip to Naco on Friday to buy cigarettes at midday and said border agents told him as he was walking over at midday, "Don't go over there without a bulletproof vest."
"It felt like it was a Clint Eastwood movie — it's like the bad guys are coming and you don't see kids in the streets," said Brown, who added that at least 90 percent of the stores were closed.
About 5 p.m., some of the stores had reopened and children were back in the streets, but local residents said they were still on edge.
"All the kids in Naco are scared," said Fernando Hernandez, 36, who was coaching a soccer practice for a group of local boys near the main park in town. "Because they know this about hit men."
The people in town are calm but on alert, said Cecilio Pereda, who has a photo studio in Naco, Sonora. The attacks in Cananea hit close to home, he said.
"We are neighbors, and you never know what kind of a reaction you are going to see," Pereda said in Spanish.
Others downplayed the rumors and questioned why drug gunmen would come to Naco, where they would be trapped without a way out, surrounded by the U.S. border to the north and only one highway out of town to the south.
"There is no way they are going to come here, because there is no way out," said Perez, the store owner.
"The only way out for them would be the highway, so we know if they come here they won't get out alive or we would have a major clash," Bracamonte said in Spanish. "But we can't be too confident, because this type of bad buy — forget about it."
Meanwhile the death toll from fighting between the gunmen and Mexican forces rose with the discovery of another suspect's body in the mountainous region of Arizpe, the death toll involving the convoy of armed assailants that burst into Cananea shortly after midnight Wednesday rose to 23 — five police officers, two civilians and 16 suspects.
Mexican officials have attributed the violence to a fierce turf battle between rival drug cartels — and the government's crackdown — continued to take its toll in Northern Sonora.
In Hermosillo, a state police commander was gunned down about 9 p.m. Thursday, said José Larrinaga, a spokesman for the Sonora Attorney General's Office.
The commander, Pedro Emigdio Córdova Herrera later died at a hospital, Larrinaga said.
The commander was shot twice in the head and once in the upper body by a suspect or suspects riding in a white sedan, the spokesman said Thursday.
The commander had been a target once before, while serving in Navojoa last year, Larrinaga said.
Meanwhile, El Imparcial newspaper in Hermosillo reported Friday that one of the suspects arrested after the Wednesday shootout near Arizpe between law-enforcement agents and members of the convoy is an active member of the municipal police in the state's capital city.
Contact reporter Brady McCombs at bmccombs@azstarnet.com. |
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