Pubdate: Mon, 12 Dec 2005
Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA)
Copyright: 2005 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.uniontrib.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/386
Note: Does not print LTEs from outside it's circulation area.
Author: Anna Cearley, Union-Tribune Staff Writer

DRUG WAR IN TIJUANA SPILLS OVER THE BORDER

CHULA VISTA - Police officer Richard Deomampo didn't know he was
facing a suspected associate of a major Mexican drug trafficking group
when two men started shooting at him in a busy parking lot.

U.S. authorities learned later that one of the men arrested in the
Sept. 28 incident was Edgar Lopez Frausto. Mexican and U.S. law
enforcement authorities say Lopez is connected with the Arellano Felix
drug cartel based in Tijuana.

No one was injured in the noontime incident, which started when the
Chula Vista officer responded to a report of shots being fired at a
nearby house. However, the incident illustrates the danger to innocent
people when Mexican drug trafficking groups conduct their business in
San Diego County neighborhoods.

U.S. law enforcement officials said the Chula Vista area has become a
hot spot for such activity over the past 16 months, though most of the
cases involve dumped bodies.

"We are seeing an increase because of the power struggles in the drug
world. . . . It trickles up this way," said Chula Vista police Sgt.
Yvette Roullier, who oversees the department's crimes of violence
unit, which includes homicide robbery investigations.

Lopez, 31, and the man he was arrested with, Jorge Salvador Moreno,
35, of National City, are facing several charges including attempted
murder, according to court records.

Other cases with suspected links to Mexican drug groups
include:

Three men whose decomposing bodies were found in a van parked in Chula
Vista in August 2004. They were identified as Tijuana residents
Teodulo Espinosa Andrade, 36; Guadalupe Becerra Herrera, 40, and Jaime
Colorado Gomez, 36.

The death of Francisco Javier Olguin Verdugo, 22, of Tijuana. His
body, clad only in underwear, was found this year along Heritage Road
near Otay Valley Road in Chula Vista on Aug. 5.

The killing of Ricardo Escobar Luna, 31, who had ties to Tijuana. His
body was found wrapped in a blue tarp near a busy Bonita intersection
on Aug. 20. The case is being investigated by the San Diego County
Sheriff's Department.

No arrests have been made in connection with the deaths. Autopsy
reports for four of the men are sealed and the other report remains
incomplete and unavailable, said Rick Poggemeyer, a supervisor with
the Medical Examiner's Office. As a result, no information is
available on whether the men were tortured, a trademark of drug groups.

It's not clear why the recent cases surfaced in the Chula Vista area.
In 2003, the San Diego Police Department had two cases of dumped
bodies with suspected links to Mexican drug traffickers, but hasn't
encountered anything similar lately, Lt. Kevin Rooney said.

Some Mexican drug traffickers and their families are known to live in
South County, attracted to the area's proximity to the border and
because they may feel safer there.

Some are aligned with the Arellanos, who have controlled the flow of
drugs into Southern California for at least 15 years. Since 2000,
Mexican authorities have arrested many of the cartel's top leaders and
associates, and the group's geographic influence appears to have waned.

However, Mexican and U.S. law enforcement sources have said privately
that the Arellanos remain in control of drug smuggling through Tijuana
- - even though rivals are attempting to operate without the cartel's
permission.

Jan Caldwell, a spokeswoman for the local FBI office, said some of the
cases in the Chula Vista area are believed to be the result of rivals
lashing back at the Arellanos.

"We believe the battle for control of the Tijuana (corridor) does
precipitate violence, and that violence does cross the border," she
said.

The violence is posing new challenges to local law enforcement
agencies.

"We have always investigated homicides a certain way and this isn't
changing the way we do business," Roullier said. But, she added, "we
don't have the ability to track and trace and confirm whether a person
is involved in one of the cartels."

Roullier said the police department is trying to improve that by
collaborating with federal law enforcement agencies and working
closely with Mexican law enforcement.

Misha Piastro, a spokesman for the local Drug Enforcement
Administration office, said the agency is also aware of the recent
cases in the Chula Vista area.

He said many of the victims "have been suspected of having ties to the
drug underworld." The motives, he said, are either "the direct result
of drug trafficking feuds . . . or over perceived slights or insults."

The September incident occurred in a quiet cul-de-sac of five homes in
an upper middle class Chula Vista neighborhood east of Interstate 805
and near Olympic Parkway.

A woman who answered the door at the targeted house referred all
questions to her husband. The woman, surrounded by three of her young
children, said her husband works in Tijuana, where he owns liquor
stores. She said he was at the house at the time of the shooting.

"I don't know anything about it," she said.

The husband, whose name appears in the house's property records,
didn't respond to a request for an interview.

Roullier said the homeowner called police for help when men in a red
truck started shooting at the house. Deomampo, who was nearby,
confronted the suspects in the parking lot of a strip mall near East
Palomar Street and Brandywine Avenue.

As shoppers stood by, two men got out of the vehicle and shot at the
officer 16 times, hitting the patrol car's windshield and roof,
Roullier said.

"He was able to get to the rear of the vehicle . . . but by then they
had gotten back into the car and took off," she said.

The encounter happened so quickly that the officer didn't have time to
fire back, she said.

Deomampo radioed for help and attempted to pursue the suspects until
bullet damage to his tires halted the car, Roullier said. Police
arrested Lopez and Moreno a few blocks away, near the Boys & Girls
Club, as they attempted to escape. The vehicle carrying the other
suspects sped away to Tijuana, where the car was recovered and
returned to the United States as evidence, Roullier said.

Roullier said Deomampo, an 11-year-veteran of the police department,
was unavailable to comment and on temporary leave.

It's unclear whether Moreno - who has a U.S. criminal record - has
connections with Mexican drug cartels.

Lopez's picture appeared last year on an FBI list of people suspected
of working for the Arellanos or rival drug groups, local spokeswoman
Caldwell said.

Lopez was described on the list as an unidentified suspect, with the
nickname "Monkey." Caldwell said Lopez is suspected of being an
associate of the Arellanos.

Mexican authorities also identified a man with the same name as a
suspected member of the cartel in 2000 when he was arrested with the
son of a high-ranking Arellano cartel member in Ensenada, the Mexican
Attorney General's Office said then. The other man eventually faced
drug trafficking charges, according to Mexican media reports, but no
further mention was made of Lopez. 
- ---
MAP posted-by: Richard Lake