How do I order your book?
Mexican cartels and ensuing violence leave mark on Texas border town
Oct. 10, 2010
[snip]ZAPATA, Texas — Sgt. Jimmy Mendoza is so baby-faced he could pass for a high school student, but he has helped drag bodies from the Rio Grande, bullets in their heads.
He has sped to a San Ygnacio school after gunfire south of the border hit perilously close to the building, sending students ducking under their desks.
And he’s stood above the Rio Grande and looked across the water, watching members of a drug cartel walk nonchalantly along the Mexican side of the river, machine guns slung over their shoulders.
That violence has been news for months, but it took on new urgency north of the border after the apparent death Sept. 30 of Colorado native David Hartley, who investigators believe was shot and killed by pirates ...in Mexican waters on Falcon Reservoir.
.
“I think we could stop it with the help of Mexico.”
But in recent years, as natural-gas production has moved east and north, it is Falcon Reservoir that has been the key economic engine for Zapata, attracting televised bass-fishing tournaments.
The 44-mile-long lake, which straddles the border, is home to black bass, alligator gar, tilapia and other species that grow to record size in its warm waters.
“Total chaos” yards away
The world across the border, where whole towns are controlled by well- organized drug cartels, is “totally out of control,” he says.
“This year has made me realize we are yards away from total chaos — total disregard for law, total disregard for human life,” Gonzalez says.
The cartel members are brazen, like the kid busted in his county running drugs who calmly described how easy it was take a couple of Rohypnol, also known as the date-rape drug, wash them down with beer, and shoot someone in the head. And how it was a matter of honor to look the victim in the eye before pulling the trigger.
The cartels are also awash in drug money, making it easy to bribe Mexican law officers, to control things on the south side of the border.
A 17-year-old arrested in Zapata for drug running told a stunning story, how he came across three times a day with marijuana in his small fishing boat, dumping it on the American side of the lake on the south edge of town.
He was paid $5,000 a load.
“In three-and-a-half days, he makes what I make in one year,” Gonzalez said.
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_16300367