Thread: Why Border Violence Spillover Needs to be Defined

By: Sylvia Longmire

01/17/2012 ( 7:00am)




If you asked Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano or El Paso Mayor John Cook if the violence associated with Mexico’s bloody drug war has spilled over into the United States, their answer would be a resounding “No!” But if you asked Southwest border region sheriffs and ranchers whose properties run along the border, some would answer with a resounding “Yes!”

So who’s right?

Unfortunately, no one can say. Because there is no official, standardized definition of spillover border violence spillover, its existence is in the eye of the beholder. During a time when US agencies and politicians are struggling to figure out what a secure border looks like and how to make it happen, the disagreements over spillover violence is tantamount to throwing fuel on a fire.

[Editor’s note: For more on the issue of spillover violence from Mexico’s drug war, see the June, 2011 “Kimery Report,” Cartel Threats, Attacks on US Law Enforcement and the Question of ‘Spill Over’ Violence. Also see the report, Dangerous Rock Attacks on Border Patrol Agents Are Up; Chopper Brought Down by Rock in ‘79]

There are some definitions for spillover violence, but each has its own limitations and problems. The definition currently used by DHS is "spillover violence entails deliberate, planned attacks by the cartels on US assets, including civilian, military, or law enforcement officials, innocent US citizens or physical institutions such as government buildings, consulates, or businesses. This definition does not include trafficker on trafficker violence, whether perpetrated in Mexico or the US.”

Texas employs the following definition:
“Mexican cartel related violence that occurs in Texas. We include aggravated assault, extortion, kidnapping, torture, rape and murder.”

And the Southwest Border Task Force uses this definition:
“Any act of violence motivated by drugs, human smuggling or money that takes place within 25 miles of the US-Mexico border — and can be linked to crime across the border.
”
The first thing that comes to mind with the DHS definition is its similarity to the definition of a terrorist attack. The US government has made it very clear that it considers Mexican transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) to be made up of criminals, not terrorists.

The definition goes against the very nature of violence in Mexico. While this is changing in some areas, the vast majority of drug-related violence going on near the US-Mexico border and across the country is criminal-on-criminal. Common sense dictates that spillover border violence implicitly means the same violence that’s happening in Mexico is happening in the United States. However, DHS’s definition explicitly states that “this definition does not include trafficker on trafficker violence.”

A Congressional Research Service report on spillover violence stated that DHS acknowledged “[we] don’t have exact stats on violence between cartel members [in the US].” But if violence between cartel members is the problem in Mexico, why wouldn’t DHS characterize spillover border violence as the exact same thing that’s happening in the United States?

The definition used by the State of Texas comes closer to an accurate description, but it’s hard to say where the Southwest Border Task Force came up with the 25-mile limit for their definition.

In October 2010, a man was beheaded in his Chandler, Arizona apartment for telling his cartel bosses authorities had seized his drug load, when in fact, he sold it and kept the money. It was clearly an act of brutal violence between cartel-associated criminals on US soil. However, Chandler is a suburb of Phoenix, and is located 160 miles north of the Southwest border. Would the Task Force discount this event as spillover, despite the fact it was the first ever cartel-related beheading in the United States?

[Editor’s note: DEA and federal countercartel intelligence authorities suspect that there have been a number of beheadings and mutilations in the US that can be attributed to Mexican TCOs. According to law enforcement officials, the recent beheading and dismemberment of a young women in an Oklahoma City suburb is directly linked to a specific cartel’s human trafficking activities in the US]

Further complicating the problem is the challenge to law enforcement in recording incidents as cartel- or border-related. Many cartel members or associates, when arrested in the United States, don’t self-identify with a particular cartel. Drug couriers or gang members hired by cartels to assassinate or brutally assault other people in the United States often don’t know which cartel hired them. On standard police forms in departments across the country, there’s no check-box for “cartel-related” or “spillover incident.” Unless an officer makes a note on the report or in the department’s database, it’s almost impossible to identify, classify, and track incidents that may count as spillover.

The result of these disagreements over such a simple thing as a basic definition of spillover border violence means US officials are at an impasse when it comes to establishing border security policies and allocating resources to the higher-threat areas along the border.

Meanwhile, Texas ranchers and law enforcement officials in south Texas are hearing from the federal government that the border is safer than it’s ever been; yet they’re seeing more cartel-related violence, trespassing by armed smugglers and large drug loads in their communities than ever before. People living in El Paso see angry Arizona sheriffs on television complaining about armed hordes of smugglers in their counties, but El Paso residents live in a city that only had six murders last year.

The bottom line is that the Southwest border is a dynamic place with a lot of smuggling - and sometimes violent - activity occurring in some places, but virtually no goings-on in others. The notion that parts of the southern border are extremely safe is just as valid as the notion that parts of it are extremely dangerous. But sometimes the people on one side of the argument won’t acknowledge the validity of the other side. So, the real answer to the question of whether there’s spillover border violence is, “It depends.” It’s foolish to characterize the Southwest border’s 2,000-mile length as if it’s a homogenous place.

For all the border security conferences that occur throughout the year, the one that’s needed most is a sit-down between federal officials, border sheriffs and police chiefs, mayors and border residents to hash out what spillover violence means exactly. Disagreement is inevitable, and consensus may be impossible. But some major move needs to be made in the direction of establishing a standardized definition of spillover violence so all concerned parties can work together towards a shared border security solution, instead of deferring to an, “I’ll know it when I see it” mentality.

A retired Air Force captain and former Special Agent with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, Homeland Security Today correspondent Sylvia Longmire worked as the Latin America desk officer analyzing issues in the US Southern Command area of responsibilty that might affect the security of deployed Air Force personnel. From Dec. 2005 through July 2009, she worked as an intelligence analyst for the California state fusion center and the California Emergency Management Agency's situational awareness Unit, where she focused almost exclusively on Mexican drug trafficking organizations and southwest border violence issues. Her book, "Cartel: The Coming Invasion of Mexico's Drug Wars," was published in Sept.

Homeland Security Today: Why Border Violence Spillover Needs to be Defined

RELATED

One Mexican State Bordering The US Was Deadlier Than All of Afghanistan Last Year

[Editor’s note: DEA and federal countercartel intelligence authorities suspect that there have been a number of beheadings and mutilations in the US that can be attributed to Mexican TCOs. According to law enforcement officials, the recent beheading and dismemberment of a young women in an Oklahoma City suburb is directly linked to a specific cartel’s human trafficking activities in the US]

I am reminded of the heat the liberal media gave Jan Brewer when she mentioned beheadings. It doesn't help when the people that are supposed to report the news are either in denial or cahoots.

Cartel violence is here: Teen tortured, beheaded in Oklahoma…press silent


OK - On December 21, Bethany Police Chief announced the arrest of Francisco Gomez, 31,


who has been charged with multiple drug trafficking charges and is believed to have knowledge of the grisly murder of 19-year-old Carina Saunders.


Carina Saunders

Gomez’ co-defendant, Jimmy Lee Massey (aka “Big Country”), 33, was already in custody. Both are allegedly members of a drug/sex trafficking ring operating in Oklahoma.

According to an affidavit, Massey has admitted to kidnapping another woman and forcing her to watch as Saunders was tortured to death on October 9, 2011. Massey also told investigators how the young woman’s body was then dismembered.

On October 13, Saunders’ remains were discovered inside a duffel bag behind the Homeland grocery store at NW 23 and Rockwell Avenue. She had been beheaded and could only be indentified through dental records.

Massey also told and investigators that Saunders was killed simply to send a message of to the kidnapped woman as well as other women to comply with those running the prostitution ring.


Chief Cole expects more arrests in the case. Many of those now under investigation are said to be Mexican nationals and the drug/sex trafficking ring is reportedly directly connected to one of the cartels.

Though the mainstream press has failed to report on the growing cartel and Latin American gang violence in this country, beheadings and torture killings are nothing new.

-In 2005, two MS-13 members were convicted in an Alexandria, Va. United States District Court for killing a 17-year-old pregnant girl. A rope was placed around the neck of Brenda Paz, she was then stabbed repeatedly. Her body was then left along the muddy banks of Virginia’s Shenandoah River. The murder was retribution for the girl’s cooperation with a federal investigation into the gang’s activities.

MS-13 (or Mara Salvatrucha) was formed by Salvadoran, mostly illegal immigrants in the 1980’s, during El Salvador’s civil war. While the gang was originally made up exclusively of Salvadorans, they now accept all Central Americans as well as Mexicans. MS stands for Mara (slang for mob), Salva (El Salvador), Trucha (slang for on-guard).

MS-13 began in Los Angeles and as members moved deeper into the country, more loosely structured gangs or cliques were formed. However, these cliques continued to communicate with one another, and the network was formed.

Over the years, MS-13 has become better structured, and the FBI believes that the gang’s L.A. members have a higher status among the group. The gang typically targets high school and even middle school students for recruitment.

-In October 2007, three Mexican nationals were charged with first-degree murder in the death of Mario Lopez, 27, also a Mexican national whose decapitated body was found a month earlier in the Atchafalaya River.

-On April 8, 2008, while testifying before the Florida House of Representatives in support of tougher immigration enforcement measures, Bill Stewart, Deputy Chief of Staff for Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum said: “Florida is the number one state in the nation for human trafficking. And I will just leave you with a recent story that occurred in the panhandle.”

“There were several girls that were trafficked into the panhandle from Mexico. These girls were raped repeatedly over a week’s period of time, and one of them actually resisted while she was being raped.”

“So the smugglers grabbed all of these girls, chained them in chairs, and put them in a room. They brought in the girl who refused to be raped, and they beheaded her, in front of all of the other girls that were in that room. And they left them there, with her body, and those little girls, for several hours,” Stewart concluded.

-In March 2011, police in Chandler, AZ, announced that the man found beheaded in his apartment in October 2010 was killed after he stole from Mexican drug smugglers, who in turn, hired assassins to murder him.

According to Chandler police, Martin Alejandro Cota-Monroy, 38, stole 400 pounds of marijuana and methamphetamine from the El Chapo drug trafficking organization, and told the cartel that the drugs had been seized by the Border Patrol.

When the cartel discovered that Cota-Monroy lied to them, they hired hitmen to kidnap and murder him.

On October 10, 2010, Cota-Monroy’s neighbor found him lying in a pool of blood, decapitated.

Chandler police Detective David Ramer told reporters: “It was a very gruesome scene. Anytime you see a headless body stabbed multiple times, obviously that's gruesome. And this is a message being sent — not only are they going to kill you but they're going to dismember your body, and ‘If you cross us, this is what happens.’”

As the cartels and foreign gangs specializing in drug/sex trafficking continue to spread throughout the United States, there will undoubtedly be more little girls forced into prostitution as well as more grisly murder scenes.

Americans need to know that just because the mainstream press doesn’t cover it…doesn’t mean it is not happening.
Examiner