war zone? or good police work?

first trip to the roof

I know I have friends and probably readers that think I live in a drug war zone. I feel like I escaped one when I left San Francisco. Tonight though, we had some action on my street.  It seemed controlled to me. Of course, I’m not getting paid to pay much attention to these things.

What I first noticed were the flashing blue lights coming in the transom windows over the front door. It took another 10 minutes before I was interested enough to go and have a look. The street was full of army and police cars with flashing lights. It was full, like bumper to bumper for my whole block and half of the next block. There were some civilian looking cars and trucks sprinkled in there and it wasn’t until later that I realized they were all army and police as well.

see the silhouette on the left in front of Concha's door?

In the US we don’t allow the army to function as a police force inside the country, I think it is in the constitution even. It’s not something that we think about much, it just seems normal not to see the US Army actually working except in other lands. It’s something that takes some adjustment when you move outside the US, in other countries it is quite common to use the army as a police force. Here in Mexico, it is the best force that the feds have available since many local police agencies are controlled by the cartels. After awhile you get used to young guys in military uniforms with automatic weapons hanging off the back of trucks and standing at road blocks.

So, I wasn’t all that surprised to see trucks full of soldiers with automatic rifles and balaclavas filling my street. I admit that the balaclavas are still pretty intimidating to me, that’s really something that I’m not used to. I was curious, and I was cautious. I’ve no desire to be one of the collateral statistics and I have a pretty good idea how bullets fly everywhere when people start shooting. It’s high holiday time now, the biggest religious holiday in Mexico is this Friday, the day of the Virgen of Guadalupe, and the firecrackers have been going off in bursts for days. So, I wasn’t exactly sure whether there had been shots fired or not, actually I still don’t know.

more action at the corner

Or, we could say that I’m cautious… or a coward. It doesn’t matter to me. So, I stood outside for a minute and asked one of the soldiers what was happening. He said there was a situation at the bar on the corner. I asked if it was a wreck because the intersection was full of cars and people. He gave me an incredulous look and just said NO. At that point, I had walked a few feet down the street and when another soldier motioned me back I quickly retreated inside my 2′ thick rock walls. I do know the difference between cover and concealment, I wanted both.

Ah, but now I was curious. So, I went up on the roof. Now, I knew that those army guys would not want someone standing on a roof over them in a perfect sniper position but I’m foolhardy as well as a coward and my roof has those thick walls too and they are about chest high. Oh, I took my glass of wine and the camera. My idiocy falls somewhere between taking pictures of an operation where everyone feels the need to hide their face with a balaclava and using the flash to take their picture. Um, no flash.

the other end of my block, not shy these guys

While I was up there I saw them bring a guy in the classic hands clasped on the back of the head posture and put him in one of those black, civilian looking cars. I also noticed that there were guys down behind the doors of the white truck and they had automatic weapons as well. They had concealment but I wouldn’t give a dime for their cover.

guy on driver's side white pickup has his gun pointed at ?

After awhile I got bored and my glass was empty so I came back downstairs. About a half hour later, the blue lights were still flashing so I went back to the front to have another look. Not much had changed. While standing there I saw my neighbor Concha come out. I called to her to see if she knew what was going on, and she started across the street. When she got to my side she suddenly said the Spanish equivalent for ‘oh shit’ and took off towards the corner. That’s when I noticed that they had her older son up against the wall spread legged.

Concha is one uppity woman, I don’t know what she said but there was a lot of arm waving and fast talking and then she and her son came back to me. She said her son was just going to the store, yeah ok. I asked her what happened, actually I asked her if there were any bodies. You know, let’s cut to the chase here if there aren’t a bunch of headless bodies then I’m just standing in the street for some normal bar bust. She laughed and she said to the army guys on the truck, ‘this gringa wants to know if you have any bodies’. Everybody laughed, I went back inside because I noticed a lot of people starting to run towards the corner. Not just regular people, army guys with guns. I did take this one picture from street level for you all but you can see that it is pretty blurry – must be the camera.

my only street level picture

So, then I refilled my glass and got a new battery for the camera and went back to the roof. Did I tell you about the singing during all this? Remember when I had to chase Barney the cat into my other neighbor’s house the other day? and they were having a religious ceremony and the incense was overpowering? Well, they have these rosaries there every night now, tis the season, and they sing. I’m not sure what they are singing but it sounds sweet and religious and vaguely Christmasy. It’s a very small and narrow house and they have to leave the front door open or they would all die from the lack of oxygen and the incense so they could see the blue lights and the balaclavas and the M16′s and all right in front. But, they didn’t stop singing for the Virgen. It was a very odd combination, the incense, the bad off-key singing, the blue lights, the M16′s, the shadowy men with their faces hidden behind ski masks in the tropics. You really had to be there but I’m sure most of you would not want to be there because, you know, it looks more dangerous than walking to your car from Union Square after Christmas shopping even though it is much safer than that.

Back on the roof, I took another couple pictures and then I heard a loudspeaker say something about someone on the roof. Well, it said “garble garble squawk, TECHO, garble squawk”. Since Techo means roof and since I was the only person I could see up on the roof, I left with dignity. Actually, I dropped below the wall and ran back inside… in a dignified manner of course.

So, that’s all I know. Everyone I saw walking on the street was stopped and searched including anything they were carrying. I saw one guy arrested but they couldn’t get the car out so he was really just put in the back of the black Honda and stayed there with 4 guys in balaclavas sitting and chatting probably. No screams.

So, that’s my story from the drug war trenches here in the 3rd world. Be safe out there.

postscript:  In the news today is a big article about the raids on bars in the centro.  It seems that it was what in the US we would call an ABC raid, checking licenses, sales to minors, and shutting down 5 or 6 bars.  I think our street was the staging area for all the raids, there were several streets in the centro closed while this was going on.  If you want to see some better pics of the guys in the balaclavas carrying out the raids, go here.  I particularly liked this pic of a woman officer in her vest, she is clearly in some position of authority.

love the vest