Chief says police won’t back down to cartel threats

Nogales police are taking extra precautions, including wearing firearms while off duty, after a Mexican drug cartel threatened retribution against officers who bust smugglers while out of uniform.
As was first reported Friday on the NI website, Police Chief Jeffrey Kirkham said the threats came after off-duty officers surprised marijuana smugglers about two weeks ago while riding horseback in an unincorporated border area east of town.
The officers seized part of the drug load, but the smugglers were able to flee back into Mexico.

"The Nogales Police Department will not be intimidated.” Jeffrey Kirkham, NPD chief ADVERTISEMENT

“As a result of that,” Kirkham said, “our officers have received threats from the cartel that they are to look the other way if they are off-duty, or they will be targeted by a sniper or by other means.”
In the past, analysts say, a direct threat against U.S. police officers would have been uncharacteristic of the Sinaloa Cartel run by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, which controls the trafficking routes along the Arizona-Sonora border. But in early 2009, at a meeting with cartel associates in Sonoyta, Sonora, Guzman reportedly ordered his traffickers to use deadly force to protect loads passing through U.S. territory.
George Grayson, professor at the College of William and Mary and author of the book “Mexico: Narco-
Violence and a Failed State?” said the 2009 directive marked a shift for Guzman, who had traditionally sought to portray himself as a benevolent godfather-type who didn’t go out of his way to harm people.
Grayson said the threat against the NPD, assuming it wasn’t a hoax or a local hooligan popping off out of turn, was the first time he had heard of a direct threat against a local U.S. police force emanating from Guzman’s territory. Since it might have come as a result of Guzman’s directive, he said, the threat should be taken seriously.
“(Guzman) is not one who just shoots off at the mouth to get recognition,” Grayson said.
Howard Campbell, a professor at the University of Texas at El Paso who studies drug violence in Ciudad Juarez, said that while drug traffickers in his area have often expressed anger at federal law enforcement, they have generally left the local police alone. Mexican officials have suggested that the March killings of three people associated with the U.S. Consulate in Juarez came after one of the victims – a corrections officer at the El Paso County Jail – mistreated drug gang members at the jail. But the El Paso County sheriff has challenged that theory, Campbell said.
Like Grayson, Campbell said the threats against the NPD should be taken seriously, especially if they are coming from the Guzman organization.
“On the other hand,” he added, “tactically it would not be a smart move by the cartel to carry out such a threat since it would incur the wrath of U.S. law enforcement.
“The bottom line, though, is that such threats are themselves acts of aggression which require that U.S. authorities take necessary precautions,” he said.
Kirhkam said that in addition to authorizing his officers to take extra precautions while off duty, he has also notified the Border Patrol and other federal law enforcement agencies of the threats. The agencies responded by stepping up manpower and surveillance in the area where the off-duty bust occurred, he said.
But Kirkham said the NPD would not back off in its enforcement efforts.
“The Nogales Police Department will not be intimidated,” he said.
Kirkham said the threats highlighted the need for more federal law enforcement at the border.
“This has nothing to do with SB 1070 or illegal immigration,” he said, “it has to do with narco-trafficking and the violence of the cartels.”
Santa Cruz County Sheriff Antonio Estrada said he was unaware of similar threats being made against his deputies.
“They seem to respect an officer who’s doing his job,” Estrada said of the cartels, “but when you do it as a civilian, they really take offense.”