City Police to Resume Patrols on Border

More than four months after it was taken out of action for “re-evaluation” after a shooting that prompted protests, an anti-crime squad that operates along the U.S.-Mexico border will be redeployed, San Diego police said Monday.

Police said they will institute several major changes in the unit--apparently intended to reduce the risk that officers will be mistaken for aliens and attacked by robbers, which police say has been the primary cause of the shootings.

The unit also will begin operations without members of the U. S. Border Patrol, whose officers had participated in the unusual squad for five years until it was put on hold last January. A Border Patrol spokesman said the agency is not yet ready to make a decision on whether to participate in the unit, whose procedures have been under review by city and federal officials in recent months.

‘Deserves Police Protection’

“We decided we just couldn’t wait anymore,” explained Manuel C. Guaderrama, deputy San Diego police chief, who expressed the hope that Border Patrol officers will eventually join the reconstituted unit. “This area (the border) is part of San Diego, and it deserves police protection as much as any other part of the city.”

Six officers began training last Saturday and should be in the field within two weeks, police said.

The border squad operates along an 8-mile-long, half-mile-deep stretch of international boundary that is considered the busiest--and, perhaps, most violent--strip along the entire 1,952-mile U.S.-Mexico border.

The decision to put the unit back into operation drew immediate criticism from Roberto Martinez, co-chairman of the Coalition for Law & Justice, a San Diego-based rights group. The coalition has called for the unit’s permanent disbanding, citing its violent record. “Its purpose is to prevent crime, but it creates a situation in which it kills more people than the robbers,” Martinez said.

During five years of operation, the joint police/Border Patrol squad, composed of about a dozen officers at a given time, shot 44 suspects, 18 of whom died. Three unit members, all Border Patrol officers, were shot; all recovered.

Although critics say shootings by the squad are excessive, authorities say the numbers reflect the violent and unpredictable nature of the rugged border zone, where there are often few paved roads and minimal lighting, and where thieves lurk in the darkness.

Authorities deny allegations by Martinez and others, including a number of survivors, that the officers acted as decoys and provoked violent confrontations.

But, in each fatal-shooting case, police say that thieves attempted to rob the uniformed officers. Police say the darkness and the border robbers’ bold approach account for the unusual number of attacks upon a heavily armed and uniformed police squad.

High-Profile Unit

The new unit will be especially high-profile, attempting to deter crime and avoid violent incidents, police said. “We’re not looking to get into fire fights,” said Guaderrama. “But if someone’s trying to kill them (the officers), . . . they have to do what they’re trained to do.”

The newly designed patrol is the latest evolution of a special police decoy squad that initially patrolled the border area during 1976-78, earning a reputation for daring and occasional recklessness that was chronicled by Joseph Wambaugh in his book, “Lines and Shadows.” That group was disbanded after 19 months, when police decided it was too dangerous for the officers.

The more recent squad--called the Border Crime Prevention Unit--began operating in early 1984, but it had two key differences from its undercover predecessor: Officers patrolled in uniform, attempting to deter crime by their presence, and its members included Border Patrol agents.

Among the changes to be implemented in the newest unit, said Guaderrama, will be added daytime intelligence-gathering patrols (the previous unit operated largely at night); a requirement that participants have a working knowledge of Spanish and greater cooperation with Tijuana police. In addition, the participants, who volunteer for the assignment, will be assigned to the squad permanently, replacing the four-month rotations of the past patrol. The idea is to make greater use of the experience gained, Guaderrama said.

Overall, Guaderrama said, the officers will attempt to reduce crime by their visibility and then focus on the identification and arrest of known criminals, with the cooperation of Mexican police. They will concentrate on areas where there is little Border Patrol presence, he said, as the criminals tend to avoid the border guards.

Along the border between San Diego and Tijuana, thieves wait each evening to assault the hundreds of largely docile undocumented immigrants--universally known as pollos, or chickens--who seek to cross the border daily, often carrying their life’s savings with them. Robberies, rapes, killings and other crimes occur frequently in the border zone, on both sides of the dividing line.

Since the unit was taken out of action in January, police say there have been 1 killing, 3 reported rapes and 19 armed robberies in the border area of San Diego. As most crimes are probably not reported, authorities say only homicide statistics provide any kind of a barometer of area crime.

5 Killings in 1988

During 1988, authorities say, five killings were recorded in the border area. During the same one-year period, officers of the unit shot and killed six suspects.

The Border Patrol’s future involvement remains unclear. William Veal, deputy chief of the Border Patrol in San Diego, said authorities are still evaluating procedures and are not sure whether patrol agents will participate anew. A recent bolstering of staff along the border, Veal said, has pushed criminals and aliens back into Mexican territory, particularly along the region of the Tijuana River levee, just west of the San Ysidro Port of Entry, where many violent incidents have occurred.

“There is still a criminal element down there,” Veal said, “but the crimes have been displaced and aren’t occurring on U.S. soil.”

The Border Patrol, which has about 800 officers based in San Diego, by far the largest contingent nationwide, is a uniformed and armed enforcement branch of the U. S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

The special border anti-crime squad was taken out of action after the most recent shootings, which occurred Jan. 4. Authorities say the two victims, both Mexican citizens, were shot by Border Patrol officers assigned to the squad after they and others, armed with knives and screwdrivers, attempted to assault the lawmen. An attorney representing the families of the two dead men contends that the two were gunned down from behind as they attempted to flee back to Mexico. The lawyer has filed two multimillion-dollar claims against the Border Patrol.