To think this city is right next to San Diego. The violence we hear about there is hard to imagine. Well, we hear about it on talk radio but not much with the lamestream media. Wouldn't want to hurt tourism.

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Top cops in Tijuana get big pay raises

Feb 8, 2008

So how much do you pay a Mexican law enforcement official who risks his life taking on organized crime?

In Tijuana, Secretary of Public Security Alberto Capella Ibarra will soon get a big bump in monthly wages, from roughly $7,500 to $11,000. Police Director Julian Leyzaola’s monthly salary will jump from $4,500 to $9,000.

Capella has been a marked man since November, when two dozen gunmen shot up his house. He travels everywhere with 20 bodyguards. His wife and three children live somewhere outside Tijuana. And when things get really dangerous, Capella crosses the border to stay overnight in the San Diego area.

Leyzaola, rarely seen in public without an AR-15 rifle slung over his shoulder, is said to live at the tightly secured Mexican army base in the center of the city. The officials, both hired in December, are trying to clean up the notoriously corrupt police department while assisting state agents and federal troops in the war against the city’s drug cartels.

Unlike past top cops in Tijuana who ended up killed or indicted, Capella and Leyzaola are widely believed to be honest. And, according to the Tijuana newspaper Frontera, they now are also the highest- paid officials in the city.

— Richard Marosi in Tijuana

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/laplaza ... n-tij.html