Border Task Force’s Perilous Effort Fails to Stem Tide of Bandit Terror

At first glance, the three men and a woman standing on the canyon’s rim and silhouetted by the nighttime sky looked no different from the hundreds of illegal aliens who mass at the border every night. But they were looking south, and that innocent-enough move alerted the officers to a more sinister motive.

“Illegal aliens, well, legitimate illegal aliens, look north when they’re entering this country. This group was looking in the wrong direction,” said police Sgt. Chuck Woodruff, a member of the elite Border Crimes Prevention Unit. The unit, also known as the “bandit detail,” is composed of 12 specially trained Border Patrol agents and San Diego police officers who patrol the border canyons at night.

As Woodruff and his team advanced toward the group, their suspicions were realized. The suspects, unaware that they were being watched, had crouched behind a large bush, waiting to ambush and rob an approaching column of illegal aliens trudging up the canyon.

Woodruff’s team prevented the robbery and seized the would-be bandits without incident. After questioning the aliens, who were themselves breaking the law, the officers wished them luck and allowed them to continue north. The job of apprehending them was left to other Border Patrol agents working on the other side of the canyons. Generally, they don’t even pass the word that they have encountered a group of aliens.

Such is the nature of the border these days, that agents sworn to uphold U.S. immigration laws are now helping to make it easier for illegal aliens to enter this country safely.

The arrests were a routine encounter, but they underscored a continuing problem that has local officials and the Border Patrol groping for a solution. The border canyons east of the San Ysidro port of entry, which have been traveled for years by illegal aliens going north, have been made treacherous by Mexican bandits who cross the border at night to rob, kill and rape, sometimes for sport.

To counter the border violence, San Diego police and federal officials decided to form an unprecedented law-enforcement unit. The Border Crimes Prevention Unit, which plucked police officers from the streets of a major American city and put them in a Wild West setting, is the only one of its kind in the country.

Established in January, 1984, the unit is formed from volunteers trained in military combat tactics to help them survive in the canyons, where bloodshed and violence are nightly rituals. The border unit’s only mission is to arrest bandits and protect the thousands of illegal aliens who enter this country near San Ysidro every year. In the process, the officers make it easier and safer for aliens to enter the United States--an irony that is not lost on the agents in the unit who under normal circumstances would arrest the people they are now protecting.

Some members of the bandit detail have Vietnam combat experience. Woodruff, who holds a degree in anthropology, was a combat infantryman. The police and Border Patrol are hesitant to discuss the unit’s tactics. But police said that the detail works in two teams, an observation team that uses infrared glasses to spot the robbers and an “assault” team that confronts them. The teams do not go out unless a Border Patrol helicopter is available to provide air support.

The unit has its roots in the short-lived Border Alien Robbery Force, or BARF, which was glorified by Joseph Wambaugh in his best-selling book, “Lines and Shadows.” BARF was a 10-man San Diego police unit that patrolled the same canyons between October, 1976, and April, 1978. After 18 months of working undercover, BARF was disbanded when Chief William Kolender decided that the assignment was too dangerous.

Unlike the undercover BARF unit, which involved police officers dressing as pollos and becoming targets for robbery, the Border Patrol-police unit always works in uniform.

The principal reason for BARF’s demise was the seven shootings that the group had with bandits robbing aliens on the U.S. side of the border. The department pointed to the shootings that left two BARF members wounded as evidence that the job of policing the canyons was too dangerous.

But in the first 16 months that the combined Border Patrol-police unit has been in operation, the bandit detail has been involved in eight shoot-outs. These fights have left three Border Patrol agents wounded. In the last incident, agent Fred Stevens was hit five times in a shoot-out with a bandit later identified by U.S. officials as a former Mexico City and Tijuana policeman. A police officer killed the bandit during the shoot-out. Stevens is recovering from his wounds and was saved by his armored vest, which stopped two bullets to the chest.

Despite the increase in the number of shootings and agents wounded, police officials say that the current unit operates under much safer guidelines. However, police Cmdr. Cal Krosch says that on occasion members of the border unit argue that they can be more effective if allowed to work in plainclothes, as BARF did, instead of wearing uniforms.

“It’s really far more dangerous that way (working undercover). It’s bad enough that they shoot at us when we’re in uniform. It is less likely that they’re going to take on a uniformed officer than they would an alien. You’re just exposing the officer to too much risk (by working undercover),” Krosch said.

Former police Sgt. Manny Lopez, who led the BARF team and was prominent in Wambaugh’s book, disputes Krosch’s argument that officers are safer if they wear uniforms. Lopez argues that the uniforms attract gunplay and the officers lose the advantage of surprise.

“The bandits see them in one place, and they go rob somewhere else. The element of surprise is a big advantage in those canyons. If you’re camouflaged (in plainclothes) and the enemy doesn’t know where you are, you’re going to put fear in them. But the uniforms make the guys targets.

“BARF could have had more shoot-outs, but we averted many gunfights because we were in plainclothes, dressed like aliens. Because we looked like aliens, we could get close to the bandits and overpower them. Even if they suspected that we were cops, they wouldn’t know until we got the drop on them,” Lopez said.

After BARF was disbanded, local officials were willing to let the Border Patrol handle the problem as best as they could and virtually conceded the canyons, which are within the San Diego city limits, to the bandits. But Krosch said that changed in November, 1983.

“We kept watching and monitoring what was going on in those canyons. In November, 1983, we had three murders in one month . . . six rapes (and) 40 reported robberies. It was a huge upsurge. Crimes were occurring within our jurisdiction. We had a responsibility to address them, even though the suspects and victims are here illegally,” Krosch said.

According to police statistics, in 1984 there were 491 reported incidents of violence, more than one a day, involving illegal aliens along the border. Police say these incidents represent the tip of the iceberg, because most crimes go unreported unless the aliens are apprehended by the Border Patrol. Since 1974, 43 aliens have been found slain in the canyons, and police have arrested only eight suspects in these killings.

“There’s no other place in the country where we have this kind of violence on such a regular, ongoing basis. But we really are somewhat handcuffed from seriously addressing the problem. We’re serious about what we’re doing. But the answer and solution lies at a much higher level . . . back in Washington . . . in some kind of reasonable immigration policy that will stem the flow. And nothing seems to be done about it,” Krosch said.

According to Krosch, the department’s contribution to the bandit detail is costing the city $365,000 annually. Recently, when Krosch asked the City Council to request federal funding to help pay costs, council members declined, saying they did not want to jeopardize federal money for other projects, like a border sewage treatment plant, by asking for money for the city’s bandit detail.

“It’s costing a lot of money, but what’s the alternative?” Krosch asked. He said that if police pulled out of the canyons, “it would be open season down there.”

Shortly after Border Patrol Chief Agent Alan Eliason arrived in San Diego, local police suggested forming the combined police force that has become unique in the country. Since the root of the problem, illegal immigration, was federal in nature, and the crimes were committed locally, Krosch said that the joint operation was “a natural marriage.”

Assistant Chief Agent Mike Williams blames the border banditry and violence on the “tremendous lure” posed by the masses of humanity crossing the 12-mile stretch of border from the Pacific Ocean to the Tijuana airport every day. In 1984, the Border Patrol apprehended 175,000 aliens on that 12-mile stretch, and Williams said that at least that many got away.

“When you have that large concentration of people who subject themselves to this banditry as peaceably as they do . . . you’re going to find a large potential for crime. In my mind, the reason the bandit detail exists is to prevent the banditry and to arrest people who are committing these crimes . . . to provide some form of protection for the illegal aliens who are coming in,” Williams said.

Both Krosch and Williams use words like “vicious” and “brutal” when describing the bandits who roam the canyons almost at will. “These people are very vicious. They rock the aliens first. They beat them. They rape them. They shoot them. They knife them and then they rob them,” Williams said.

After an April 23 shoot-out with bandits, the border unit recovered a handgun that was used in the canyon murder of an illegal alien on April 1, and a suspect was arrested. Williams said that the murder victim was shot 14 times. The unit had been receiving reports for several months about the same man robbing aliens in the canyons, he said.

Although most of the incidents of violence occur at night, daylight assaults by some of the more brazen bandits are not uncommon. Nine days ago, two bandits crossed the border in the middle of the afternoon and robbed two aliens who were hiding in a canyon, waiting for darkness and a chance to sneak into the United States.

The victims resisted. One was hit on the head with a rock, and his partner was stabbed to death. The survivor fled back to Mexico, but crossed the border again after others persuaded him to inform the Border Patrol. The bandits melted into Colonia Libertad, a tough, impoverished Tijuana barrio that clings to the side of a hill that buttresses the border.

Most of the time the bandit detail operates east of San Ysidro, but officials stress that the unit “goes where it’s needed.” Last year, the Border Patrol received numerous reports of robbers working during the day in a canyon west of San Ysidro. But working in that particular canyon during the day was difficult because the bandits had lookouts who scanned the area with binoculars, looking for the police bandit detail, and they carried portable radios.

The problem was circumvented by placing the border unit in the canyon at night. The team lay there all night and day, waiting for the robbers. Late in the afternoon, the bandits struck, only to be arrested by the waiting officers.

A question frequently asked of the border unit, particularly after every shoot-out, is what effect are the six officers and six agents having on border violence. Border Patrol and police officials hope that the officers can curb the violence partly by wearing their uniforms and keeping a high profile. But that hope has turned out to be more optimistic than real.

“The problems (and) numbers are overwhelming. We are having an effect (but) we’re really a Band-Aid approach . . . We’ve made in excess of 80 arrests since we’ve been doing it, and a lot of people are getting good sentences. . . . But for every one we arrest, there’s always someone to replace him” Krosch said.

He said that the dangers and frequent gunfights concern him “greatly and cause no end of grief.”

“The question always comes up after we have a shooting: ‘Are we going to disband now?’ I’d like to disband, but we can’t. What’s happening right now is bad enough. Were we to pull out, what would happen down there?” Krosch said.

Woodruff called the unit’s efforts a “finger in the dike situation,” but he said that the task force members are pleased with the minimal results.

“Aliens are telling us that the robbers are taking less time to rob them. We think they (robbers) are speeding up the robberies because they know we’re out there. We also think that’s another reason why rapes are down (13 reported in 1984, only one this year). They don’t have time to assault the women. In the past, the bandits took 20 to 30 minutes to rob a group, which also gave them enough time to rape the women,” Woodruff said.

Recently, some resentment has surfaced among U.S. lawmen over the apparent lack of concern by Mexican police officials, particularly among Tijuana police, about increasing border violence. At a recent international conference on border crimes held in Mexicali, some San Diego County lawmen suggested that if Tijuana police patrolled Colonia Libertad more aggressively, border violence would decrease.

Border Patrol and police officials believe that most of the canyon assaults are committed by people who live in the colonia.

“My understanding is that the (Tijuana) police department doesn’t go in there unless they absolutely have to. And then they go there in force. I think that’s an indicator of what kind of area Colonia Libertad is. It’s a very dangerous area,” Williams said.

Mexican officials agree that Colonia Libertad is a tough area. But the Mexicans do not believe that most of the bandits operate from there, and they also disagree with American lawmen who say the bandits operate in organized groups.

Efrem Vizcarra, an official with the Baja California State Judicial Police, described the border violence as “sporadic” and “spontaneous.” Vizcarra also said that Mexican officials do not believe that assaults against aliens in the border canyons are as widespread as the Americans claim.

Despite the obvious differences between the two sides, Williams said that U.S. and Mexican authorities are still exploring ways to “deter the criminal element as much as possible.”