On Tuesday, seven bullets believed to have been fired from one or more AK-47s from across the border hit the El Paso City Hall. It was big news in the Texas border town right across the river from Juarez, Mexico, but it earned a collective yawn from the national MSM. What do the East Coast news gods care about us here in Texas anyway?
Folks in El Paso, though, were somewhat offended. The El Paso Times reported:
EL PASO — Several gunshots apparently fired from Juárez hit El Paso City Hall on Tuesday afternoon. No one was hurt, but nerves were rattled at City Hall in what is thought to be the first cross-border gunfire during a drug war that has engulfed Juárez since 2008. El Paso police spokesman Darrel Petry said investigators do not think City Hall was intentionally targeted but rather was struck by stray shots. “It does appear the rounds may have come from an incident in Juárez,” Petry said.
El Paso NBC NewsChannel9 aired a video showing just how close the City Hall is to the site of the shoot out in Mexico. ABC7 interviewed El Paso residents who live near City Hall. And, KFOX14 got a shot – a camera shot that is – of the circling Blackhawk mentioned below in the El Paso Times.
Authorities said a Mexican federal police officer was killed during an attack by gunmen near a Smart supermarket on Norzagaray boulevard. Chihuahua state police identified the dead man as Domingo Hernández Espinoza and said that two other people were wounded. Investigators found 40 bullet casings from an AK-47 and other firearms.
A Mexican federal police Blackhawk helicopter and a smaller helicopter were flying in circles over west Juárez after that shooting. A Border Patrol helicopter was later flying on the U.S. side.
Is this the first time a Texas city has taken incoming fire from across the border? Nope.
Similar cross-border shootings have occurred in other cities. Last September, the University of Texas at Brownsville was closed for a weekend after a building and a parked car on campus were hit by bullets fired during a shootout across the border in Matamoros, Mexico.
Texas Attorney General Gregg Abbott sent President Barack Obama this letter in response to the incident.
Dear Mr. President,
Deadly violence from drug cartels and transnational gangs in Mexico is knocking on the United States’ door with ever increasing frequency.
Yesterday, gunfire from the cartels pierced that threshold and struck City Hall in El Paso. Fortunately no one was injured or killed. But that good fortune was not the result of effective border control – it was mere luck that the bullets struck buildings rather than bodies.
Luck and good fortune are not effective border enforcement policies. The shocking reality of cross border gunfire proves the cold reality: American lives are at risk. As the attached news article notes: “More than 1,300 people have been murdered in Juárez this year as a war continues relentlessly between the Juárez and Sinaloa drug cartels.” Americans must be protected as this deadly war bulges at our border.
Law enforcement officials with the Texas Department of Public Safety and your own U.S. Customs and Border Protection will reveal the hard truth. Our state is under constant assault from illegal activity threatening a porous border.
The time for talk has passed. The time for action is now. The need is urgent. Each day that passes increases the likelihood that an American life will be lost because of the federal government’s failure to secure the border.
This threat demands immediate and effective action by your Administration to secure our border. As the Attorney General of Texas, I urge you to make border security your top priority so that no more innocent lives are lost to border violence.
Given the rapid White House response to the Gulf oil spill, Attorney General Abbott should hear back from Washington by, say, Labor Day.
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