'Joke' report leads to alarm on border

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'Joke' report leads to alarm on border
Widespread panic over pending 2nd attack based on false information

A false report Friday that a heavily armed team of gunmen were advancing on Cananea, Sonora, led to widespread alarm in the local border area, with schools and businesses closing in Mexico and U.S. citizens reporting rumors of massive carnage in Sonora and Border Patrol pullbacks in Arizona.

By Friday afternoon, officials on both sides of the border were dismissing the rumors, with Cananea mayor Luis Cha Flores calling the report that started it all “a joke made in poor taste.”

The situation began shortly after 10 a.m., when Cha Flores, citing information that a group of armed gunmen had arrived in a town 10 miles west of Cananea, placed his city on a state of alert.

However, as schools, business and public offices closed and radio stations advised Cananea residents to stay in their homes, Sonora state attorney general Abel Murrieta Gutierrez quickly dismissed the reports of gunmen as unfounded.

Even so, rumors began to spread in Naco, Sonora, that the armed convoy was headed next for this border city, approximately 40 miles northeast of Cananea.

Naco’s director of public security, Juan Alberto Bracamonte, said he received word of a possible hit squad headed his way at approximately 11 a.m. He responded by closing the city government offices that share a building with the municipal police station.

“We know that these hit men like to target police stations, so we decided it would be best to send everyone else home,” Bracamonte said, as a half dozen plain-clothed men carrying shotguns stood guard outside his office.

The city’s schools soon closed as well, and business owners began to shutter their shops. Rumors spread that assailants had already arrived in Naco and kidnapped several local men, and that a firefight between hitmen and Mexican army troops was raging at a highway junction a few miles south of town.

None of the rumors were proven true, Bracamonte said.

“The people heard about the alert (in Cananea) and they got scared,” he said.  “But it was a false alarm.”

The region was ripe for panic after a convoy of 10 to 15 vehicles carrying up to 50 armed gunmen had rolled into Cananea shortly after midnight on Wednesday, kidnapping as many as 10 people and killing four of them — all municipal police officers.

State police later tracked the gang to a mountainous area south of Cananea and killed 15 of the gunmen. Five police officers and two citizens were also killed in the hours-long gunbattle.

By early afternoon Friday, Cha Flores had gone on the radio in Cananea to confirm that earlier warnings of a follow-up hit squad had been false. Calling the report “a joke made in poor taste,” he urged residents to return to their normal lives.

Maria and Eduardo Gonzalez, owners of the La Flor de Michoacan popsicle stand on Naco’s main avenue, kept their business open throughout the scare. Maria said she felt relieved by TV news reports discrediting the reports of gunmen as a hoax.

“Even so, you can’t help but feel scared by something like this,” she said.

With schools closed and Naco’s streets mostly deserted, customers had been scarce at the popsicle shop, the Gonzalezes said.

Eduardo joked that if a convoy of narco-gunmen did make its way to Naco, he hoped they would stop in and buy a few glasses of horchata, a cold rice-and-cinnamon-based drink.

 

On the U.S. side

Meanwhile, the rumors that had spread through Cananea and Naco soon crossed the border into southern Arizona, gaining traction with local residents and law enforcement agencies.

Children at the Naco Elementary School in Naco, Ariz., began to cry when they heard reports of gunmen, parents said.

After hearing of possible violence from parents and conferring with officials at the Border Patrol and Cochise County Sheriff’s Office, Superintendent Patricia Marsh put the school on lockdown at 12:05 p.m.

Border Patrol agents arrived to provide additional security.

Marsh said that given the sketchy information, she decided that lockdown was a better option than canceling classes.

“I didn’t want anyone to panic, and I didn’t want to scare the children,” she said.

All students were sent home at 2:10 p.m., the normal release time for younger grades, but an early release for older students. No students were permitted to walk home, Marsh said; they either had to take the bus or get picked up by their parents.

Down the street at the Naco Port of Entry in Naco, Ariz., rifle-toting Border Patrol agents scrambled onto the roof of the port’s main building and stood watch around the perimeter, peering into Mexico. A U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer sat near the pedestrian entryway into Mexico holding a shotgun, warning people that if they crossed the border, they did so at their own risk.

By 2 p.m., the Border Patrol had left the port of entry and the CBP officer was no longer monitoring the pedestrian crossing.

Contrary to rumor, the port of entry was never closed, CBP spokesman Brian Levin said. The Mexican port of entry stopped allowing vehicles to cross into Naco, Sonora, for several hours, but pedestrian traffic was not interrupted.

Carol Capas, spokeswoman for the Sheriff’s Office, said that her agency activated its mobile response team around midday after receiving reports of a violent situation near Cananea.

Capas couldn’t verify the initial source of the information, but said that some details had come from sources in Mexico and some from the Border Patrol. Law enforcement in Naco, Sonora, was reporting by 1:15 p.m. that the reports of violence were bogus, she said.

County residents were calling the Sheriff’s office as well, reporting rumors of armed gangs headed for the border and wondering if they might be struck by gunfire if they drove along Highway 92.

A number of local citizens also called or e-mailed the Herald/Review to provide second- and third-hand reports of a purported shootout in Cananea that had left more than 100 people dead. Several said they had received their information from friends or contacts in the Border Patrol or CBP. Some reported hearing that the Border Patrol was pulling personnel away from the border.

Border Patrol spokesman Gustavo Soto said his agency had stepped up its preparedness upon hearing rumors of the bloodshed, but relaxed when the rumors proved false.

“Once we learned the reports were not valid, we regained our normal posture,” Soto said.

One caller reported that a group of 34 Arizonans had taken up arms and headed out to help the Border Patrol fend off an advancing column of narco-gunmen. Soto said he was unaware of any vigilantes.

A convoy of National Guard troops was seen driving north up the Naco Highway towards Bisbee at shortly after 1 p.m., but Soto rejected suggestions that they had been pulled off the border for security reasons.

They were simply ending their shift, he said.

 

Wednesday’s assault clarified

In the Sonora state capital of Hermosillo on Friday, Gov. Eduardo Bours said that the commando of drug hitmen who descended on Cananea on Wednesday morning were taking revenge on police officers for betraying an agreement.

Bours said authorities have received information that the assault in Cananea was “some kind of retaliation by the hitmen for their betrayal by local police, implying that they had had some kind of deal.”

Mexican officers often face the choice of “plomo o plata,” or “silver or bullets,” meaning they can either take bribes to allow traffickers to operate or risk retaliation. Drug cartels place special emphasis on killing officials who break such deals.

Cha Flores said 15 policemen have resigned from the Cananea municipal force since the Wednesday             attack.

The assailants, pursued by police and army troops after the assault, fled to the hills, ditched their vehicles, commandeered horses and forced ranch hands to serve as guides, according to an account from a man abducted by the armed gang.

Sixteen assailants were killed in the ensuing gunbattles in the rugged desert mountains outside Arizpe, 60 miles south of the U.S. border.

One man who was kidnapped said Friday that his captors identified themselves as “Gulf people,” an apparent reference to the Gulf drug cartel. He said they carved a “Z” on his back with a knife, referring to cartel’s hit men who are known as “Zetas,” and demanded money.

The man, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisal, escaped when police began to pursue the gang.

On Friday, Mexican army troops found a body in the search for members of the drug cartel assault        force.

Authorities say they have arrested six suspected members of the group. One of the detainees is an active member of the Hermosillo police force, Bours said.