Lines and shadows Read Free Page A

rarely fingerprinted, don't carry identification, and often change their names on later tries, so it was nearly impossible to prove identities. If the Border Patrol caught 10 percent of all pollos, they were doing remarkably well, the cops figured. Border patrolmen talked wistfully of La Ley de Fuga , The Law of Flight. If you flee you are shot. The law of Mexico. The law of many "developed" countries. But alien smugglers have been known to make a million dollars a year.
    It's lucrative, and everyone knew that if the aliens were somehow miraculously all rounded up, half the restaurants from San Diego to the Oregon border would have to serve buffet style on paper plates. And wealthy Californians would suddenly be washing their own cars and cutting their own grass and cleaning their own houses and tending their own children. And who in the hell would pick the crops? And what of the small factories? And what would happen to the garment industry? And so forth.
    So with this incredibly complicated headache, only too familiar to the people of San Diego living just north of that imaginary line, it wouldn't do for Dick Snider to approach the police administration with do-gooder talk about the tragedies inflicted by bandit gangs. The way to approach it was to present cold, incontrovertible numbers , and to tell the police administration how he could make those big numbers get smaller.
    It wasn't easy, in that things move very slowly in a bureaucracy. At first the brass was not particularly troubled by the numbers. But the reported alien crimes, which Dick Snider had always estimated to be a tenth of the actual occurrences, were causing some damage to the overall portrait of "America's Finest City" whose tourist bureau touted the most temperate climate on earth. A city where tourism was huge. A great retirement community and an enormous military base. Very unlike the bigger city "up the road"— meaning Los Angeles—San Diego was advertised as being lovely and smog-free. And safe . But the San Diego Police Department daily occurrence sheets were telling another story: Saturday, 2300 hours. Spring Canyon, alien robbery. Two males armed with a gun. Three victims.
    Saturday, 2100 hours, Deadman's Canyon, three suspects, two victims. Knives and machetes used.
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    Wednesday, 2000 hours. Alien robbery, E-2 Canyon. Clubs and rocks used. Ten victims. Five suspects.
    And the aliens were not only being robbed by bandit gangs, but others were finding the pollos too tempting to resist:
    Wednesday, 1930 hours, alien robbery, Monument Road. Three victims. Armed Tijuana police officer ambushed them.
    Wednesday, 2245 hours, alien robbery. Three victims. Monument Road. Border Patrol interrupted robbery. Tijuana auxiliary policeman (unarmed) in custody. Other uniformed officer (armed) escaped into Mexico.
    Friday, 0700 hours. Alien robbery. Suspects were two Tijuana police officers. Victim struck in face, threatened with gun, maced in eyes.
    Thursday, 2230 Hours, alien robbery. Three victims robbed in gully by two male suspects dressed in tan Tijuana police uniforms.
    Then the robberies began getting steadily more ferocious, the log entries more grim: Wednesday, 0950 hours. Body found 1/2 mile east of Hollister, 200 feet north of border fence. Male, Mexican, 30's, throat cut.
    Friday, 1430 hours. Border Patrol found body on mesa near mouth of Spring Canyon. Badly decomposed male.
    Tuesday, second watch. Border Patrol says Tijuana Police Department notified them of murder by soccer field in Spring Canyon, 0100 hours.
    If the pollos were lucky enough to run the gauntlet in canyons, there awaited the MexicanAmerican youth of San Ysidro. Who could resist? The pollos were so timid. So easy : Wednesday, 2300 hours, alien robbery, San Ysidro View Park. Victim struck from behind. Face beaten in. Hospitalized.
    Friday, alien robbery, 0100