New Border ‘Bandit Detail’ Out to Protect Illegal Aliens

At first glance, the three men and a woman standing on the canyon’s rim, silhouetted by the lights of Tijuana, looked no different from the hundreds of illegal aliens who mass at the border every night. But these four were looking south, and that was enough to alert border officers to a more sinister motive.

“Illegal aliens, well, legitimate illegal aliens, look north when they’re entering this country. This group was looking in the wrong direction,” said Police Sgt. Chuck Woodruff, a member of the elite Border Crimes Prevention Unit. The unit, also known as the “bandit detail,” includes 12 specially trained Border Patrol agents and San Diego police officers who patrol the border canyons at night.

As Woodruff and his team advanced toward the group, their suspicions were realized. The suspects, unaware that they were being watched, had crouched behind a bush, apparently waiting to ambush and rob an approaching column of illegal aliens trudging up the canyon.

Woodruff’s team headed off the robbery and arrested the surprised suspects without incident. After questioning the aliens, who also were breaking the law, the officers wished them luck and allowed them to continue north. The job of apprehending them was left to Border Patrol agents working on the other side of the canyons.

Such is the situation along the border these days--agents sworn to uphold U.S. immigration laws are now helping to make it easier for illegal aliens to enter this country--or at least safer.

It underscores a continuing problem that has local officials and the Border Patrol groping for a solution. The border canyons east of the San Ysidro port of entry, which have been traveled for years by illegal aliens in their journey north, have been made treacherous by Mexican bandits who cross the border at night to rob, kill and rape. Bloodshed is a nightly ritual.

Killers Still at Large

Last Friday night, 25 Mexican nationals were robbed in three separate incidents in Dennery Canyon, two miles north of the border. The victims, who were waylaid just after they had crossed the border illegally, lost a total of about $2,700 and some jewelry to two bandits. A teen-ager was in custody, and another suspect was being sought.

According to police statistics, in 1984 there were 491 reported incidents of violence involving illegal aliens along the border. Police add that these statistics are low because most crimes go unreported unless the aliens are caught by the Border Patrol. Since 1974, 44 aliens have been found murdered in the canyons, and police have arrested only eight suspects in these killings.

“There’s no other place in the country where we have this kind of violence on such a regular, ongoing basis,” said Police Cmdr. Cal Krosch.

To counter the border violence, San Diego police and federal officials decided to form the law enforcement unit that Krosch helps direct. The border crimes unit, which took police officers from the streets of a major American city and put them in a Wild West setting, is the only one of its kind in the country.

Established in January, 1984, the unit is formed by volunteers trained in military combat tactics. The border unit’s only mission is to arrest bandits and thus protect the thousands of aliens who enter this country illegally near San Ysidro every year.

Observation and Assault

The police and Border Patrol are hesitant to discuss the unit’s tactics, but police said the detail works in two teams, an observation team that uses infrared glasses to spot the robbers and an “assault” team that confronts them. The teams do not go out without a Border Patrol helicopter following for support.

The unit has its roots in the short-lived Border Alien Robbery Force (BARF) that was chronicled by Joseph Wambaugh in his best-selling book “Lines and Shadows.” The force was a 10-man San Diego police unit that patrolled the same canyons between October, 1976, and April, 1978. After 18 months of working undercover, it was disbanded when Chief William Kolender decided that the assignment was too dangerous.

Unlike the undercover border force unit, which involved police officers dressing as illegal aliens, or pollos (chickens), and becoming targets for robbery, the new unit always works in uniform.

Seven Gun Battles

The principal reason for the demise of the force was the seven shoot-outs the group had with bandits robbing aliens on the U.S. side of the border. The department pointed to the gun battles, which left two members of the force wounded, as evidence that the job of policing the canyons was too dangerous.

In the first 16 months that the new combined Border Patrol-police unit has been in operation, it has been involved in eight gunfights that have left three Border Patrol agents wounded. In the latest incident, Agent Fred Stevens was hit five times in a shoot-out with a bandit later identified by U.S. officials as a former Mexico City and Tijuana policeman.

A police officer killed the bandit during the shoot-out. Stevens is recovering from his wounds; his life was saved by his armored vest, which stopped two bullets.

After the border force was disbanded, local officials were willing to let the Border Patrol handle the problem as best as they could and virtually conceded the canyons, which are within the San Diego city limits, to the bandits. But Krosch said that changed in November, 1983.

Three Murders in a Month

“We kept watching and monitoring what was going on in those canyons. In November, 1983, we had 3 murders in one month . . . 6 rapes (and) 40 reported robberies. It was a huge upsurge. Crimes were occurring within our jurisdiction. We had a responsibility to address them, even though the suspects and victims are here illegally,” Krosch said.

Assistant Chief Border Patrol Agent Mike Williams blames the violence on the “tremendous lure” posed by the masses of humanity crossing the 12-mile stretch of border from the Pacific Ocean to the Tijuana Airport every day. In 1984 the Border Patrol arrested 175,000 aliens on that 12-mile stretch, and Williams said that at least that many got away.

“When you have that large concentration of people who subject themselves to this banditry as peaceably as they do . . . you’re going to find a large potential for crime,” Williams said.

Even in Daylight

Although most of the incidents of violence occur at night, daylight assaults by some of the more brazen bandits are not uncommon. Earlier this month, two bandits crossed the border in the middle of the afternoon and robbed two aliens who were hiding in a canyon, waiting for darkness and a chance to head north.

The victims resisted. One was hit on the head with a rock, and his partner was stabbed to death. The survivor fled back to Mexico but crossed the border again after others persuaded him to inform the Border Patrol. The bandits melted into Colonia Libertad, a tough, impoverished Tijuana barrio that clings to the side of a hill that buttresses the border.

Most of the time the bandit detail operates east of San Ysidro, but officials stress that the unit “goes where it’s needed.” Last year the Border Patrol received numerous reports of robbers working during the day in a canyon west of San Ysidro. Working in that particular canyon by day was difficult, however, because the bandits had lookouts scanning the area with binoculars for the police bandit detail, and they carried walkie-talkies.

Lying in Wait

The problem was circumvented by placing the border unit in the canyon at night. The team lay there all night and day, waiting for the robbers. Late in the afternoon, the bandits arrived, only to be arrested.

Despite their success, the sheer volume of crime along the border is discouraging to unit members.

“The problems (and) numbers are overwhelming. We are having an effect (but) we’re really a Band-Aid approach. . . . We’ve made in excess of 80 arrests since we’ve been doing it and a lot of people are getting good sentences. . . . But for everyone we arrest, there’s always someone to replace him,” Krosch said.

” . . . We’re serious about what we’re doing, but the answer and solution lies at a much higher level . . . back in Washington . . . in some kind of reasonable immigration policy that will stem the flow. And nothing seems to be done about it. . . .

“The question always comes up after we have a shooting: ‘Are we going to disband now?’ I’d like to disband, but we can’t. What’s happening right now is bad enough. Were we to pull out, what would happen down there?” asked Krosch, who estimates that the unit costs the city $365,00 annually.

Taking Its Toll

Woodruff said the unit is having an effect. “Aliens are telling us that the robbers are taking less time to rob them,” he said. “We think they are speeding up the robberies because they know we’re out there. We also think that’s another reason why rapes are down (13 reported in 1984, one so far this year). They don’t have time to assault the women. In the past, the bandits took 20 to 30 minutes to rob a group, which also gave them enough time to rape the women.”

U.S. lawmen sometimes complain that Mexican police are not making enough effort on the south side of the border to control the bandits. At a recent international conference on border crimes held in Mexicali, some San Diego County lawmen suggested that if Tijuana police patrolled Colonia Libertad more aggressively, border violence would decrease.

Mexican officials agree that Colonia Libertad is a tough area, but they do not believe that most of the bandits operate from there. They also disagree with American lawmen who say the bandits operate in organized groups.

Efrem Vizcarra, an official with the Baja California State Judicial Police, described the border violence as “sporadic” and “spontaneous.” Vizcarra also said that Mexican officials do not believe that assaults against aliens in the border canyons are as widespread as the Americans claim.