Tijuana is often characterized by a one-dimensional narrative in both Mexico and the U.S. But the metropolis has many sides that rarely get discussed.
In this installment of the podcast “Border City” from our sister paper, the San Diego Union-Tribune, longtime border reporter Sandra Dibble talks about what it was like covering the assassination of a police chief in Tijuana and the arrest of a powerful drug suspect.
She also moonlights as an opera singer in Tijuana, puts on a concert for friends from both sides of the border and navigates living a binational life after 9/11, which changed the flow of traffic from one side of the border to the other.
Read the full transcript here.
Host: Sandra Dibble
More reading:
Listen to all the “Border City” episodes
Gustavo: Hey, what’s up. It’s Gustavo. And today on The Times…Border City: Chapter 4.
Mux in?
In this installment of the podcast from our sister paper, The San Diego Union-Tribune, longtime border reporter Sandra Dibble talks about what it was like covering the assassination of a police chief in Tijuana and the arrest of a powerful drug suspect.
She also moonlights as an opera singer in Tijuana….puts on a concert for friends from both sides of the border….and navigates living a binational life after 9/11…which changed the flow of traffic from one side of the border to the other.
Enjoy….
Mux out?
SCENE 1: De la Torre.
Sandra Dibble: One Sunday morning in February, 2000, my guitarist friend Paco and I decided to ride our bikes across the border, to San Diego. It was a perfect winter day, with temperatures in the 50s. And it was peaceful - even the major avenues were free of traffic.
I was pulling on my black spandex riding shorts when my phone rang.
Tijuana’s police chief had been shot dead.
OPTION TWO: KFMB TAPE
Gunmen sprayed more than 100 bullets into the front window and driver’s side of a black Chevrolet Suburban driven by Tijuana police chief Alfredo de la Torre. Mexican authorities are reporting the chief, shown here, at a police recognition ceremony earlier in the year did attempt to fire back, but was fatally shot to death…..
Alfredo De la Torre was the second police chief to be assassinated since I’d moved to Tijuana six years earlier. He was gunned down just two miles from my apartment.
De la Torre wasn’t a faceless victim in another news story. He was someone I knew.
I’m Sandra Dibble and this is Episode Four of Border City, a podcast from the San Diego Union-Tribune. It’s about Tijuana, a city known for violence, drugs and migration into the United States. But it’s also a city where I -- like so many others--have found a place and a purpose. A city of exuberance and hope.
Sonic separation
De la Torre was traveling alone that winter morning, because he gave his bodyguards Sundays off. He was on his way to work, driving along one of the city’s major highways.
Gunmen armed with high-caliber weapons pulled alongside him. They opened fire and sprayed the Suburban with 100 rounds. De la Torre crashed into a tree.
It was clearly a targeted hit, the work of organized crime.
But why was the chief targeted, and by whom?
Migrant smugglers? Drug traffickers?
My heart raced as I changed into work clothes and rushed to my car.
I knew the place where the chief had been attacked. It was across the street from a Ford dealership and a convenience store.
By the time I arrived, the crime scene was crawling with cops and journalists. De la Torre’s body was gone, but the bullet-riddled Suburban was still there.
The chief’s spokesman was standing nearby. He was sobbing.
Change in tone
Lauro Ortiz was the first person to reach de la Torre. He was a reporter for the newsmagazine Zeta and was on his way to an assignment. He’d stopped for coffee at the convenience store.
File: Lauro talks about de a torre
[00:03:08] café. Y al momento de estar pagándolos se escucha unas ráfagas. Dizer estuvo fuertes o no. Y luego escucho un choque que un reprimido es un choque en seco. Entonces las muchachas que ya estaban pagando el café que me estaban comiendo ellos nomás se escondieron bajo lustrador. [00:03:29][21.3]
estar pagándolos escuchar unas ráfagas dizer que dijo tuvo fuertes o no y lo escucho un choque que un reprimido es un choque en seco. Entonces las muchachas que ya estaban pagando el café que me estaban comiendo ellos nomás se escondieron bajo lustrador.
Actor reading for Lauro[00:03:29][91.0] And at the moment of paying, I hear bursts of gunfire, and then a crash. So then the girls that I was paying hide behind the counter.
Lauro ran across the highway. He approached the Suburban.
Actor for Lauro: ensangrentada y todavía respirando. [00:04:15][44.9] I see someone completely bloody, and still breathing….I recognize Alfredo de la Torre.
[00:04:17] Y en el caso de reconocer es Alfredo de la Torre [00:04:18][0.9]
Paramedics arrived moments later. But by then, the chief was dead.
Lauro ran back to the store to call his boss, Jesus Blancornelas. He was the Zeta editor who’d survived an assassination attempt a few years earlier.
[00:04:20] [00:04:20] Entonces....éste... Cruzo nuevamente hacia hacia el lugar donde estaba yo comprando el cafe. Oye don jesus fíjese que acabaron de matar a alfredo de la Torre.
Cómo? Si como estuvo? no pues me toco, pero aqui esta frente de mi. [00:04:35][15.8]
And I say Listen, don Jesus, they just killed Alfredo de la Torre.
I was shaken by De la Torre’s death.
We’d met a couple years back, when he was in charge of the overcrowded La Mesa State Penitentiary in Tijuana.
It was known as El Pueblito--the little city--and it had its own economy. Prisoners ran their own food stands. Wealthy inmates hired poorer ones as bodyguards and servants.
One time I needed de la Torre’s permission to interview an inmate for a story I was writing.
I remember his thick brown mustache, and the way he sat back in his chair and eyed me carefully.
De la Torre paused before he said yes. The kind of pause that lets you know he’s in control.
BEAT
Half a dozen men soon confessed to killing the chief and 14 other people. They admitted to working for the Arellano’s arch rival--the powerful Sinaloa cartel.
Two of de la Torres’ own officers were allegedly in on the plot--but both of them escaped.
One of my Union-Tribune colleagues interviewed U.S. law enforcement officials about his murder.
According to their informants, the chief had been working for the Arellanos.
<<<
Scene 2: VIOLENCE
Sandra: I began to accept the fact that there were forces in Tijuana that I would l never fully grasp. The terrible power and violence of the drug trade had infiltrated every level of society--apparently even my own apartment building.
My downstairs neighbor was a courteous young man who drove a Lexus and kept a pair of pet monkeys. One day, looking down from my balcony, I spotted an AK-47 on his table.
I was shocked. In Mexico, only the military is allowed to own such powerful weapons. Criminals manage to get them, of course. Often from the U.S.
When I saw my neighbor’s high-caliber rifle that day, I immediately stepped back inside, with my heart pounding. I said nothing.
Eventually that young man disappeared. Years later, my landlady told me he had been found dead.
Whenever a high-ranking official was killed, or a dangerous drug suspect was arrested, I braced for the aftermath.
I was never sure where it would come from.
But something would happen. I was sure of that.
Mux
A few days after de la Torre was buried, one of the highest-ranking members of the Arellano cartel was captured.
It happened on a Saturday afternoon, at Tijuana’s elite public high school. In front of teenage boys playing American-style football.
(music cue)
Suddenly, the field was surrounded by heavily armed federal agents and soldiers in civilian clothes. They headed into the stands, toward one of the parents.
His name was Jesus “Chuy” Labra Aviles.
Labra was so dangerous you wouldn’t even say his name out loud. He was the financial brain of the Arellanos.
Labra tried to run away. But then he stopped on the football field and gave up.
He kneeled and raised his arms while a masked soldier pointed a rifle at him.
BEAT
Labra’s capture was a major victory for U.S. and Mexican authorities. For years they’d been trying to weaken Mexico’s cartels by removing the top leaders. It was known as the kingpin strategy, and Labra was one of the first to fall.
Sound underneath
A few weeks later, the cartel pushed back with astounding brutality.
Three Mexican agents were found dead. They were members of an elite federal squad investigating the Arellanos. Their bodies were dumped in La Rumorosa - a mountainous area about an hour east of Tijuana.
Jose Patino was their leader.
He was a quiet, unassuming federal prosecutor in his late 40s. Married, with four children. For years he’d been working with U.S. law enforcement agents to take down the Arellanos. His U.S. colleagues trusted and respected him.
The Mexican agents’ work was so dangerous that they’d been living in San Diego. One morning they crossed into Tijuana for a meeting--but they never showed up.
Video footage showed a black suburban following their white Chevrolet sedan.
Two days later, the agents’ bodies were found thrown from their car. It had been rolled down a steep rocky cliff.
Steve Duncan is a retired California law enforcement agent. He was a member of the Arellano Felix Task Force, the U.S. group that worked with Patino and his men.
They called Patino “Pepe.” They trusted him. Considered him a friend.
File: Duncan/patino/corrupt cops
[00:04:11] And so we were very concerned. And then on I believe it was the third day. My partners ….at the violent crimes task force got taken into a room by the head of the FBI and head of DEA and told that you know your counterpart - Pepe - h rras been found and he was murdered and his body looks like a you know you can’t even identify his body. It looks like it’s been put through a meat grinder. And it’s just. And he was tortured. So everything you’ve ever shared with them they probably know. And so just so you know guys. So we were very upset.
MUX IN
Dora Elena and I drove to La Rumorosa that night. We spent hours driving up and down the steep, winding road, searching for the ravine where the bodies were discovered.
BEAT
But it was dark, and by the time we pinpointed the exact location, the police were gone.
We peered down from the precipice.
But all we could see was the faint outline of the agents’ car.
As we drove away, we didn’t have time to think about what had just happened.
The best we could do was report the pieces of a puzzle that was still being formed.
MUX out
Scene 3: Are we safe?
Fox accepts the presidency (0:23-0:29) cues
FOX: Estoy aqui por el hambre de justicia (I’m here because of the hunger for justice) (1:56:2:03)
(cheers and fade under narration)
That summer--the summer of 2000-- Mexican voters stunned the world by ending 70 years of domination by the Institutional Revolutionary Party.
The new president was Vicente Fox. He was a former Coca Cola executive and a member of the National Action Party.
People poured through the streets of Tijuana and across the country to celebrate. Mexico was finally transitioning into a modern democracy.
Fox vowed to end the violence in Tijuana. He sent 700 federal agents to support local forces.
The Union-Tribune’s editors began to worry about the three of us who worked in Tijuana. The paper was the only U.S. news organization with a bureau there. A new reporter had arrived to cover crime. Her name was Anna Cearley. She was great at cultivating sources in law enforcement and even the city’s underworld.
Were we safe in our little office?
I thought my editors’ concern was overblown. To tell you the truth, I thought it was stupid.
The people most at risk were our Mexican reporter friends, not us.
Gibbins: They lived down there, they worked down there, their families were there.
That’s John Gibbins. He’d been the Union-Tribune’s photographer here since 1979. Our Mexican friends called him Juan, or Juanito.
Gibbins: And they are the ones that touch the sensitive nerves with the cartel people. And they are the ones that are threatened and abused. And they’re very, very courageous for what they do down there every single day. We as American journalists, visiting journalists, we kind of pop in and out and we can cross the border to safety everyday.
Still, our bosses in San Diego took steps to protect us.
They hired a security firm to examine our office. One of our land lines had been bugged, but they didn’t know by whom.
They installed an alarm and a video camera in the basement where we parked our cars.
They also sent us to a defensive driving class taught by the California Highway Patrol. We learned to vary our routes-- how to make sharp turns to deflect a kidnapping attempt.
[00:02:08] Well, at the time, I thought it was a little bit dramatic
That’s John again.
But given a little bit of hindsight now of what occurred afterwards, it was a very smart thing to do. Because as everyone knows, the violence situation in Tijuana, and along the border, got much worse.
Opera music
SCENE 4: OPERA
On a warm August night in 2000, I headed to one of my favorite spots, the Tijuana Cultural Center. Most people call it the Cecut. Some call it La Bola or the ball--for the giant sphere that houses its IMAX theatre and planetarium. Music, theatre, dance, book readings, cultural festivals--they all take place in this sand-colored building.
On this night there was opera. And I would be on the stage.
I hadn’t had much formal music education--less than a year of piano classes.
When I was a little girl and asked to sing, I’d hide behind the living room curtains.
I didn’t make the cut for my high school chorus.
But in Tijuana, music took on a whole new meaning for me. My friend Humberto invited me to join an amateur chorus. It would be led by Ignacio Clapes. He was once one of Mexico’s top tenors.
I thought, Why not?
Music
For me and so many others, this was a city of second chances.
We rehearsed in the lobby of a small medical office--the husband of one of the sopranos donated the space.
BEAT
Some of us were accomplished musicians. Others were beginners.
To my great relief, I learned I could carry a tune.
BEAT
And then the chorus was invited to sing with the Tijuana Opera at its debut--to perform scenes from Gaetano Donizetti’s Elixir of Love.
BEAT
Jose Medina was the opera’s artistic director. He also sang the lead role, Nemorino. The San Diego Opera loaned him the set and the Bellas Artes Opera in Mexico City loaned the costumes.
For his own outfit, Jose raided his mother’s closet.
Jose medina: [00:17:45] But I remember, my costume from Mexico City didn’t fit. I was probably fatter than I am now. So I used my mother’s pants. I used my mother’s pants, all the way here with a vest and said, Mama, I’m using your polyester pants…
Jose has sung in Italy, Spain, Germany, Lincoln Center in New York City. He’s been a stage manager and set designer for operas around the world.
But he lights up in a special way when he looks back at that August weekend--- when Tijuana’s opera was born.
[00:13:20. like we say it in Mexico. La primera piedra, la primera semilla.
That translates to, the first stone, the first seed.
He says his city needed the opera.
Jose: [00:32:57] The thing is that Tijuana is in the middle of two worlds. [00:33:01][3.4]
[00:33:14] And that’s why we’re here. To try to do something for it. To get better. [00:33:14][0.0]
Jose: [00:03:05] At at the end of the 1990s Tijuana was a conflicted city but with a lot of talent and already good voices that could sing. [00:03:21][15.3]
Sandra: You keep saying Tijuana is a conflictive city.What do you mean by that.:18:35][7.7]
Jose: [00:33:02] It is dangerous. It is not like it deserves to be considered that bad. But some of those things are real.
Jose medina: [00:18:36] Well we all know the drug dealing and the immigration problem and all of this. So that makes it a difficult city, conflictive, [00:18:53][16.7][00:18:5 Very very difficult you know. [00:19:00][2.7]
Opera
As I entered the Cecut stage that night, I could scarcely believe it was me up there. Rushing around with a white apron tied around my waist and a red kerchief on my head. Singing before more than 1,000 people.
I forgot about drug traffickers and violence. About deadlines and newspapers.
On that night, I wasn’t just an observer, but a participant. I had an on-stage family and friends in the audience. All I heard was music and my heart soared.
Scene 5: A turning point
Still, I wondered about my place in Tijuana. Even after living here for seven years, I’d have pangs of homesickness at the strangest times.
I felt unsettled. I wondered where my life was headed.
I was 47 years old and had never owned a place of my own. And my professional life seemed to have overtaken my personal one. Even on weekends and holidays, I’d drop everything to cover the latest breaking news story.
And then came the 2000 presidential election---the year that Al Gore lost to George W. Bush.
I signed up for an absentee ballot. But it didn’t arrive until the election was over.
I didn’t feel like a citizen of anywhere.
I was a nobody in Mexico
And a nobody in the United States.
My reporter friend, Dora Elena, talked about my dilemma.
File: Dora/back to Washington
It’s like suddenly you were filled with nostalgia for going back to your country….I thought, Sandra is making a mistake, because she has many advantages here…. Sometimes you’d say that you might want to go back to Washington, which seemed totally out of line. Because you were now rooted here. You are from here. You’ve been here for longer than other places where you’ve lived. And if you go back to Washington, you’ll feel out of place.
Como que de repente te llegó un sentimiento de nostalgia por estar en tu país decía Es un error de Sandra, porque acá tienen muchas ventajas
lo dijiste en algunas ocasiones, que podías estar interesada en regresar a Washington, lo cual sí me parecía totalmente fuera de lugar, porque, como te decía, tú ya tienes tu arraigo acá. Tú ya eres de acá. Has estado más años que en el resto de las partes donde has vivido. Entonces te vas a sentir como fuera de lugar al momento de regresar a Washington.
In the end, I decided to move. So that’s how I ended up moving.
Not back to Washington, D.C.--the place I had always called home. But to Imperial Beach, a small coastal city in San Diego County whose southern tip hugs the border.
Mux swell to fade
<<<<
I bought a condominium in a modest neighborhood.
It was just 7 miles from my house to the border.
It was by a bike path, near the ocean--so close to Tijuana that at night I could see the lights on the city’s hillsides.
My reporter friend, Dora Elena, had mixed feelings about me moving away.
File: Dora/back to Washington
It’s like suddenly you were filled with nostalgia for going back to your country….I thought, Sandra is making a mistake, because she has many advantages here…. Sometimes you’d say that you might want to go back to Washington, which seemed totally out of line. Because you were now rooted here. You are from here. You’ve been here for longer than other places where you’ve lived. And if you go back to Washington, you’ll feel out of place.
Como que de repente te llegó un sentimiento de nostalgia por estar en tu país decía Es un error de Sandra, porque acá tienen muchas ventajas
lo dijiste en algunas ocasiones, que podías estar interesada en regresar a Washington, lo cual sí me parecía totalmente fuera de lugar, porque, como te decía, tú ya tienes tu arraigo acá. Tú ya eres de acá. Has estado más años que en el resto de las partes donde has vivido. Entonces te vas a sentir como fuera de lugar al momento de regresar a Washington.
The decision wasn’t easy.
Most of my friends were in Tijuana. Including Angela, whose family had become part of my life.
And there were logistical things to consider too.
Suddenly I had to join the lines of drivers who squeezed through the international port of entry to go to and from work. Each day, more than 80,000 commuters poured north through San Ysidro. The same number crossed in the other direction.
The crossing wasn’t too difficult at that point, in the summer of 2001. At the peak of rush hour, the northbound wait was often under an hour. And my waits were usually shorter, because I drove against the rush.
To speed things even more, I signed up for a program the U.S. offered, called SENTRI. It allowed me to use a fast lane reserved for frequent border crossers. The program was open to anyone who passed a background check, had a U.S. passport or visa and could pay a 129 dollar annual fee.
Mux fade in
I adapted quickly. I found I was comfortable living in two worlds.
And for a while, it all seemed to work. My Tijuana friends crossed to see me, and I crossed to see them.
And then, overnight, the world changed.
CNN: As smoke just covers lower manhattan, almost as far to the end of manhattan island as you can get
(10:16-10:23)
Mux beat
A few months after I moved --on Sept. 11th, 2001-- the easy bi-national lifestyle that so many Mexicans and Americans enjoyed came to an abrupt end.
The terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington D.C., left almost 3,000 people dead and plunged the United States into war.
BEAT fade out
Ambi in
When I drove into Tijuana that morning, I found a ghost town.
The usual lines of cars and pedestrians waiting to get into the U.S. had vanished.
But hours later, the northbound border lines began forming again. They had to.
Crossing the border--or going to el otro lado--is so much a part of life here that it couldn’t be totally stopped. Waits stretched for hours because of tightened security. Casual shoppers and visitors stayed home. But binational workers and students and businesses had no choice. They had to continue.
Ambi
Two weeks after 9/11, I picked up some U.S. friends at the border. We were on our way to a concert that I’d helped plan. It was at the home of my Tijuana friends Humberto and Norma.
Their house is high on a hill. Through their big picture window we could see the lights of the city all the way to the border. We sat close together on red folding chairs, waiting for the music to begin.
The pianist was Jim Chute, the classical music critic for the Union Tribune. The guitarist was my friend, Paco, who was still teaching and performing in Tijuana.
They played Bach, Bethoven, Vivaldi.
Then a duet by the 18th century Italian composer Luigi Boccherini.
Paco said they were in sync that night.
PACO: [00:01:19] y yo no hablo inglés y él no habla español pero yo le di unas partituras y empezamos a tocar y no fue necesario comunicarnos de otra manera I didn’t speak English and he didn’t speak Spanish, but when I gave him the music sheet and we began to play, we didn’t need to communicate in any other way.. tenemos la partitura y a mí me gustó mucho la forma como muy tranquila de tocar las piezas y de cómo enfrentar musicalmente y coincidimos musicalmente. No hubo necesidad de otro idioma. I liked his very calm way of playing the pieces...We were in musical agreement. We didn’t need any other language. [00:01:59][39.9]
The moment felt magical and intimate. A gentle counterpoint to the horrific images of burning towers and terrified victims of Sept. 11.
This is how Jim remembers that night.
[00:02:33] the host was just so hospitable and everybody was so welcoming and friendly
Jim: There was no awareness that there was any border here. There was no awareness that there was something separating people. We were just all there together.
Mux in
In the next episode: The most infamous Arellano brother is killed. And the “brains” of the cartel is arrested.
News clips announcing the death of Ramon Arellano or capture his brother Benjamin.
Will the downfall of the cartel’s top leaders finally bring peace to Tijuana?
Mux in
Border City was reported, written and created by me, Sandra Dibble.
Susan White was my editor and co-creator.
Our associate producers were Elize Anoush Manoukian and Hafsa Fathima
Kurt Kohnen with AMFM Music did the sound design.
And Joanne Faryon and Garage Media offered production support.
Our theme song, Tierra Mestiza, was composed by Gerardo Tames. It’s performed by Mexico City-based Los Folkloristas.
The music from Donizetti’s Elixir of Love is from the 2000 Tijuana Opera Production. Tenor Jose Medina sings Nemorino and soprano Monica Abrego performs Adina.
Thanks to guitarist Francisco Guerrero and pianist Mariana Negoda for permission to use their performance of Luigi Boccherini’s Introduction and Fandango.
Our thanks to Carmen Escobosa, who read the voice of Dora Elena Cortes.
And to KFMB-TV for the use of its news clips.
<<
Outro mux
Gustavo: And that’s it for this episode of THE TIMES, daily news from the LA Times.
If you like Border City, make sure to subscribe by finding and following the show on Spotify, Apple or wherever you listen to podcasts…or you can find it online at san diego union tribune dot com slash bordercity.
Our show is produced by Shannon Lin, Denise Guerra, Kasia Brousalian, David Toledo, Ashlea Brown, and Angel Carreras. Our editorial assistants are Madalyn Amato and Carlos De Loera. Our engineer is Mario Diaz. Our editor is Kinsee Morlan. Our executive producers are Jazmin Aguilera and Shani Hilton. And our theme music is by Andrew Eapen.
Like what you’re listening to? Then make sure to follow the Times on whatever platform you use. Don’t make us the Pootchie of podcasts!
I'm Gustavo Arellano. We'll be back tomorrow with all the news and desmadre. Gracias.
Outro mux bump to fade or hard out