Thread: Cop Killer Faces Danger If Headed Home

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Fugitive's road risky
Alleged cop killer faces dangers if headed home

By Fernando Quintero, Rocky Mountain News
May 19, 2005

SANTIAGO PAPASQUIARO, MEXICO - If Raul Garcia-Gomez is attempting to escape to his hometown and native country, the road is a treacherous and inherently risky one.

If the 19-year-old suspect has indeed fled to Mexico in his attempt to escape prosecution for the killing of Denver police Detective Donald Young and the wounding of Detective John Bishop at a southwest Denver banquet hall May 8, he faces formidable challenenge.

Mexican police roadblocks, a dangerous mountain route and an international manhunt are all working against him, even if it's true, as one local official said Wednesday, that the Mexican government hasn't yet contacted local authorities about the search for Garcia-Gomez.

Denver police Division Chief Dave Fisher believes Garcia-Gomez is still in Southern California. But the disappearance of his mother and his cousin from their home in South Central Los Angeles, where Garcia-Gomez's car was found, has raised suspicions that he may have fled to this small town two hours north of Durango, the capital of its namesake state in west-central Mexico.

From Los Angeles, the main north-south route through Mexico begins in the Sonora Desert and skirts the Pacific Coast.

At the coastal resort city of Mazatlan, Mexican Interstate Route 40 heads east over the Sierra Madre Occidental range. This week, a fishermen's strike created a roadblock outside of the main airport in Mazatlan, attracting dozens of state and federal police as well as news media.

From Mazatlan, the road becomes a two-lane highway over a mountain pass, where motorists swerve to avoid colliding with trucks and buses that barrel down the road, taking up both lanes as they negotiate the winding route.

Roadside memorials - some enclosed shrines with elaborate iron grillwork and religious statues, others solitary crosses - mark nearly every sharp curve along the way.

Oxen roam freely, crossing the road unexpectedly and creating a potentially deadly hazard for motorists. Wildfires have singed the hillsides and fill the air with acrid smoke.

At the entrance to nearly every town along the way with a population of more than 100, crude checkpoints designated by rocks placed on the road are manned by soldiers armed with machine guns slung over their shoulders. As night approaches, a bonfire warms one patrol unit.

The route is dotted with roadside stands selling cold beer and carne asada. A small truck sways from one lane to the next.

Six grueling hours later, the mountain pass descends onto a high plain, where the city of Durango twinkles like a blanket of miniature lights.

From Durango, the route to Santiago Papasquiaro is a busy highway that heads north from the city. A 12-year drought has colored the landscape with a palette of yellows and browns. The rocky peaks of the Sierra Madre outline the horizon.

The smell of dead animals fills the warm, brittle air. Buzzards circle their carcasses. Several pick at a dead chicken by the side of the road. Here, the oxen and horses are skinny, their ribs poking through their dull coats as they graze on the dry grassy plains.

After a brief climb up a mountainside, the road heads into a broad valley where a sign marking the entrance to Santiago Papasquiaro also marks the altitude: 1,719 meters (5,639 feet).

Jesus Ceniceros Castañeda, the municipal secretary, explains that the town is a point of convergence for many small ranches and villages that sit at the foot of the Sierra Madre in this remote region.

"It's a provincial town, really," he said. "Even though we've grown to more than 40,000 inhabitants, everyone knows everyone's business."

the Mexican government hasn't yet contacted local authorities about the search for Garcia-Gomez.