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Smugglers make East County highways deadly

October 13, 2005

In the not-too-distant future, electronic signs may start blinking along Interstate 8 in the East County, warning that a wrong-way driver is fast approaching.

A wrong-way driver, presumably with headlights turned off, coming toward innocent motorists at 80 to 100 miles an hour.

A wrong-way driver, read smuggler, presumably with a dozen or more illegal immigrants or an unknown quantity of illegal drugs aboard.

A wrong-way driver, as smugglers grow more sophisticated, possibly in a van with silicone in its tires to thwart police spike strips and a battering-ram bumper system to take on any law enforcement vehicle it encounters.

Relatively few East County drivers have seen such a horror, but they've heard or read about them and the too-often deadly results.

Caltrans, the California Highway Patrol and the Border Patrol unit of the Department of Homeland Security have become ever more sophisticated, adding concrete freeway medians, intense night lighting and a relatively unpublicized special CHP strike force.

This month, the district heads of the three agencies are scheduled to discuss a Border Patrol proposal for an electronic warning system and perhaps other features.

Alas, smugglers too have become ever more sophisticated, bringing in drug amounts under federal threshhold prosecution levels, hiring juvenile drivers (less chance of long sentences), beefing up vehicles with combat-like armaments, and showing increased willingness to swerve their vehicles at officers laying down spike strips.

This is an example of an out-of-control federal issue – smuggling – becoming a massive local problem. The frequency of wrong-way dashes is difficult to quantify, but in one recent two-month period there were nine reports of them.

East County residents are more at risk from such an encounter than they are from, say, a terrorist with a bomb sneaking across the border.

A federal issue become local nightmare. "The wrong-way driver problem stops at the border," said county Supervisor Dianne Jacob, who represents the East County. "If there were the political will in Washington to stop the illegal traffic (human and drug smugglers) coming across the border, the wrong-way driver problems would go away."

The remoteness of the crime scenes – Interstate 8 near Buckman Springs Road and Highway 94 near the immigration checkpoint – the lateness of the hour and the sheer number of material witnesses who are flight risks frustrate law enforcement agencies and present obstacles that clog the justice system.

But justice overburdened is justice unserved. State and federal agencies need to come together and talk about new approaches:

The U.S. Attorney's Office and District Attorney's Office should consider clearer protocols to routinely determine quickly whose case it is. Federal, say, if only smuggling and mostly federal officers are involved. State, if human deaths occur.

Consideration should be given to whether a specific federal statute on wrong-way driving would provide prosecutors more leverage in plea bargaining and help unclog the court system.

A symposium involving federal and state court systems, prosecutors, defense attorneys, law enforcement representatives and even prison heads should look for practical solutions. Must dozens of hapless illegal immigrants really be held as material witnesses for months or a year? Can early videotaping suffice? Can such burdensome cases be expedited?

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-El Cajon, must continue to lead efforts to obtain more federal resources.

A freeway sign in the East County may be blinking soon. But it shouldn't have to come to that. This federal issue must be solved. East County residents, like Americans elsewhere, should be able to drive the highways without fear of deadly criminals suddenly emerging from the darkness.