Property crimes are down but fear, frustration are up
By Tim Steller
The Arizona Daily Star
The Arizona Daily Star Border Patrol agents gather on the east side of Douglas as an Agua Prieta man straddles the wall separating Mexico from the United States |
But the numbers do little for Ray Bouton, a Palominas man who exchanged gunfire with border bandits in 1995. He and many other border-area rural residents worry over the same question:
``How do you determine who's the good guy and who's the bad guy?''
Illegal entrants ``wouldn't normally bother you, but a hungry person or a thirsty person can be pretty desperate,'' Bouton said. ``The thing is, when they come up to you, how do you know they just want something to eat or drink?''
For many, the memory of past crimes by illegal entrants overwhelms the fact that the actual danger posed by them is slight.
The relative isolation of rural lives heightens the fear. Rural residents have reacted to the dramatic rise in border crossings through Cochise County by arming themselves, building fences and buying dogs.
Is their fear warranted? Selected memories say it is.
Sheriff Larry Dever remembers a few rashes of border banditry. In the late 1970s and early 1980s near Douglas, burglars would set up camps in the brush, break into homes, load the loot into a car and return to Mexico, Dever said.
And in the early 1990s, around Bisbee Junction, a group of bandits conducted armed home invasions, tying up residents while they burglarized their homes.
Theresa Puzzi Murray, who lives about five miles west of Douglas, said she has been burglarized 30 times. Even a chain-link fence topped with razor wire has not stopped determined burglars: They threw a piece of carpeting over the razor wire and climbed into her yard.
These incidents loomed large in the memories of Cochise County residents as the wave of migrants rose higher and higher through this spring.
Then, on June 7, the bloodshed that many considered inevitable nearly occurred. A pair of illegal entrants among a group of six broke into Scott and Teatske Talberts' home on the western outskirts of McNeal and stole two 9 mm pistols.
Fleeing the house, the burglars encountered a Border Patrol agent who had tracked them northward. One of them pulled out a pistol, pointed it at him from a distance of about two feet, and pulled the trigger.
The gun didn't go off because the safety had been set. The agent arrested Armando Garcia Muñoz, 18, who was charged with attempted murder and other crimes in state and federal court.
While these incidents have kept tension up among rural residents, law enforcement statistics show no significant increase in two crimes associated with illegal entrants: burglary and auto theft.
A group of 39 undocumented aliens marches out from their hiding place in the brush south of the Trail's End Motel west of Douglas |
Burglaries reported to the Douglas Police Department fell from 20 in March 1998 to nine in March this year. Reported auto thefts dropped from 19 in March 1998 to six reported in March this year.
Violent crime has risen in Douglas - from 91 from January to June 1998 to 118 for the same period this year - but there are few such crimes in which illegal entrants are believed to be involved.
Cochise County violent crime statistics for this year were not available, but the Sheriff's Department reports auto thefts plummeted to 3.5 per month this year from 8.3 per month in 1998.
Reported burglaries in the county dropped even further. They averaged 33.5 per month in 1998 but have gone down to 9.3 per month through June of this year.
One area where police calls appear to have increased significantly is in reported prowlers or suspicious people. Through May of this year, such calls to the Douglas police nearly doubled over the same period last year, growing from 174 to 328.
Douglas police Chief Charles Austin said those reports largely represent ``undocumented aliens moving through neighborhoods who are looking for their pick-up house.''
Minor offenses committed by illegal entrants - such as trampling through yards and leaving litter behind - weigh heavily on Douglas residents' minds, Austin said.
``Those are not major crimes, but they're a major concern to the people it's happening to,'' he said.
In addition, there are the crimes and annoyances that go unreported. Murray, for instance, said she didn't report some of the 30 burglaries of her home.
The reasons: The case will likely be unresolved, and the reports drive up insurance rates.
Border Patrol agent Bryan Sakahara keeps an eye on a 14-year-old boy who was unable to escape from Sakahara and his partner John Lipani |
Although he entered the country illegally, such as the thousands of people seeking jobs, that doesn't mean the typical illegal entrant poses a danger. The woman who called the Border Patrol about Garcia and his five companions said she noticed from the start they acted differently.
Rather than steering clear of the house, they hung around it, Pauline Salmons said. But they didn't bother to ask for water, as some illegal entrants do.
Scott Talbert said one of the burglars at his house wore a hairnet and looked like a gang-banger. That was different from anyone he and his wife had seen before during a year of living in McNeal.
``All we've ever seen is people who look harmless,'' he said.
While longer-term residents share Talbert's opinion that most illegal entrants in the area have been relatively harmless, many also say that in the recent wave, illegals have become bolder.
Douglas resident Anne Williams was having a barbecue on Memorial Day weekend when her doorbell rang. Four people who looked like illegal entrants wanted to use her phone to call Agua Prieta - a first, she said.
Many residents have reported similar experiences and say the illegals' behavior differs from that of past groups, who were deferential.
Many rural residents have bought dogs and fenced the immediate area of their houses to protect themselves. Outside the fences, the land is often undefended.
It's the strategy Richard Puzzi Sr. and his son have used on their properties west and north of Douglas. The close-in fences have stood, but the dogs haven't. Two German shepherds were hung from a tree.
``We've lost eight dogs in 2 1/2 years,'' Richard Puzzi Sr. said. ``If you have a dog that's aggressive out here, something's going to happen to him.''
Many residents also bear arms more readily than they used to.
Ray Bouton was used to guns in 1990 when he moved to land about a half-mile north of the border near Palominas. One monsoon night in 1995, he heard a car outside the house and went out to look. When he shined a flashlight at a truck struggling to pass over muddy land, he heard gunshots, and bullets whizzed past him, Bouton said.
He returned fire, and the pickup turned and headed back toward Mexico. He doesn't know whether anyone was hit. The next day, he, his wife and his daughter moved to another property he owned, further from the border in Palominas.
``The only difference from living down there is I don't have to wear my gun until later at night,'' Bouton said.
``Everywhere I go, there's always somewhere to grab a rifle,'' Bouton said, adding that locked doors, dogs and motion-sensing lights ensure a bandit doesn't get the guns first.
``In order to live here, I am going to have to prepare myself to shoot somebody.''
Dever, the sheriff, said he understands his constituents' frustration and fear.
``I fully believe that the risk is very, very real,'' he said.
But he worries that some residents have set themselves up for disaster. He warned residents at public meetings this spring that the justifications for shooting someone are carefully defined under state law. And even a shooting that doesn't result in criminal charges can result in a civil suit, he added.
Not every rural Cochise County resident feels the need to arm themselves to guard against a confrontation. Sarah Kelson, also of Palominas, said she doesn't worry about crime by illegal entrants.
``I know they're here. They just have never bothered me personally,'' Kelson said. ``My feeling is most of these people don't even want to see us.
``I haven't felt a real need to have a gun - and I've grown up with guns. I just don't feel that overwhelming sense of insecurity,'' Kelson said.
Kelson teaches at Cochise College and attributes her attitude in part to daily interaction with Mexican students there. She wishes tolerance would spread among her neighbors.
``I just hope everybody stays sane,'' she said. ``This building paranoia can cause a lot of problems.''