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Mexican sues Border Patrol over fatal crash

YUMA — A U.S. Border Patrol agent was negligent when he lost control of his pickup and struck a Mexican man and his daughter while they were trying to cross the border, a recent lawsuit claims.

The case stems from an incident on March 5, 2006. Juan Cruz Torralva and his 12-year-old daughter, Lourdes, were walking through the desert south of Yuma in an attempt to cross illegally from Mexico into the United States.

According to the 12-page complaint, a four-door Chevrolet pickup driven by U.S. Border Patrol agent Gregario Garcia was approaching them at a high rate of speed. At the time, Garcia was pursuing other illegal immigrants about five miles south of exit 78 on Interstate 8, which is just east of Yuma.

Torralva’s lawyer claims Garcia lost control of the truck and struck Torralva and his daughter. Torralva suffered spinal fractures and cuts and bruises all over his body. She suffered blunt force injuries to her lungs, liver and spleen that led to internal bleeding.

Torralva was taken by helicopter to Yuma Regional Medical Center and is now permanently disabled. Lourdes died at the scene.

The complaint claims Garcia’s job "required that, among other things, [he] maintain a safe speed, keep a proper look out for pedestrians, yield to pedestrians and control [his] vehicles so as to avoid collisions with pedestrians" along the border.

Claims were filed against the Border Patrol in January and February, but U.S. authorities rejected them.

Now Tucson lawyer David Karnas, who is representing Torralva, is following up by asking for a jury trial in federal court in Tucson. He is also seeking an undisclosed sum for punitive and compensatory damages.

He put the ‘Rock’ in Rocky Point

TEMPE — Roger Clyne is a ball of energy. His flip-flops shuffle about as he squirms in his seat. In one week, he and his band, The Peacemakers, will play for another packed sandlot in Rocky Point for “Circus Mexicus,” a concert the band puts on every May and October. It lures fans from as far away as Oklahoma.

Clyne and his band set a frenetic pace. They play a blistering, four-hour set of songs for the Rocky Point shows that reach back 10 years or more. They have opened for Willie Nelson, John Fogerty, Blues Traveler and more. They tour constantly. And somewhere in between all of this, they had time to write and record the theme song for the television series “King of the Hill.”

Clyne is on a roll, the very picture of the quintessential happy rockstar who has found his niche and is working hard to expand it.

But beneath the musical trappings is a college-educated, Valley native who worries that the essence of Rocky Point — a once-sleepy Mexican fishing town that is the inspiration for many of Clyne’s clever tunes — is giving way to condominium towers and country club living.

It’s a long way from the days when he would park his dinosaur Toyota FJ Landcruiser on Sandy Beach, camp in the vehicle’s shadow and “launch fireworks, drink beer, and go swimmin’.”

He laments the latest condo-building craze, but remains hopeful for the town’s future.

“I see a lot of potential,” he says. “I see a lot of potential for community inclusion. I think inclusion is part of the solution. And I hope that it can go that way.”

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INTERACTIVES

Roger Clyne speaks out on…

• Growing up with Rocky Point
• Favorite Rocky Point places
• Development in Rocky Point and along the Sea of Cortez
• Rocky Point today, environmental awareness
• Climate change and the idea of a ‘Live Peñasco’ concert
• Download a printable transcript

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However, Clyne couldn’t offer a prediction for Rocky Point’s near future because, he said, he never could have predicted what the town has become now.

The development trend does not look good, he said.

“Based on the evidence of how growth is going, I see a real risk that greed may rule the day,” Clyne said. “I hope that that doesn’t happen. I hope that people, locals, and watchdog organizations … will be able to have their voices heard by the developers and present evidence that the long-term economic health and survival of the region is dependent on the preservation of beauty and community.”

GROWING UP WITH PEÑASCO

Clyne is an third-generation Arizonan who was born in Tucson and raised in Phoenix and Tempe. He attended Brophy High School, a Catholic school for boys downtown, then moved to Tempe and graduated from McClintock High. With the exception of a brief stint living overseas, he has never lived more than three miles from where he grew up.

That includes Rocky Point, where he vacations with his wife and their three children in a home that his father-in-law owns in Cholla Bay, Rocky Point’s original “suburb” [Clyne said he loves it for its "cul-de-sacness".]

His house is just a short walk from JJ’s Cantina where, as a teenager, Clyne would steal away from Tempe with friends who were just getting their learner’s permits to drive.

“You didn’t feel like a criminal, but an outlaw,” he recalled. “You got to go to this dusty little border town that was on the sea. For better or for worse, you could probably convince the bartender to get ya a couple of beers and…it was great adventure. And that’s proper adolescent adventure.”

As Clyne matured, his travels to Rocky Point and other parts of Mexican brought him closer to the cultural side of Latin America. He began to understand and respect the idea of “less is more” and the average Mexican’s way of life.

That includes the idea of “siesta” — a period in the afternoon where Mexicans take a break and life grinds to a halt [much to the frustration of get-it-done "gringos."]

It’s the idea that time isn’t money down there, and Clyne likes it immensely.

“The idea of “siesta” – to close a business down for rest, relaxation, community time – it’s great,” he said. “If I ever run for office, it will be on the “siesta” platform. I would. I think it’s a great thing.”

In college at Arizona State University, Clyne broadened his Mexico experience further with a study abroad in the Ensenada region of Baja California. He studied ethnography — which focuses on people and cultures — for his bachelor’s in psychology and minor in anthropology.

“Another thing I fell in love with was the fact that the people would passionately celebrate life with sound and color and events and could do so much with so little,” Clyne said wistfully. “I thought that had a certain grace to it and I was really enamored of it.”

He was hooked. And he sheepishly admits that he was on the “seven-year” program.

“I was on the ‘How long can I keep getting financial aid to support my musical endeavors’ program,” Clyne said, laughing. “I ran out the Pell Grants. They were like, ‘Hey, you’ve got 170 (credit) hours. You gotta get outta here.’”

DOING RIGHT BY ‘ROCKY POINT’

But things began to change in Rocky Point in the late 1990s. By the time Clyne was deep into his musical career — first with The Refreshments, then as the frontman for The Peacemakers — the town was following Arizona’s real estate boom with new resorts, beach-front homes, condominiums, ATV rentals and more.

Price began to climb, and with them came a Cabo San Lucas atmosphere. As of last summer, about 17,000 new rooms, 8,500 new houses and 522 new boat slips were coming to Rocky Point, according to a study by CEDO, an environmental watchdog group.

Mexican authorities, meanwhile, are planning massive housing and transportation projects north of Rocky Point that would pipe San Diego residents into the region. Developers are banking on these projects to support their own plans, which is driving today’s construction craze.

“It’s appealing from an economic standpoint,” Clyne acknowledged. “Hopefully, it could raise the standard of living for the average Mexican citizen. However, it needs to be done with conscience and with an awareness of the impact.”

Town officials should be supporting more ecotourism projects such as those that are popping up throughout resorts in the Caribbean, Clyne said. Reports have surfaced where upscale developments are using solar power, recycling programs, greywater catchments to capture rain and used water and other tools to lure affluent, environmentally conscious tourists.

He’d like to see this in Rocky Point — along with a healthy dose of community involvement.

“When I drive in and I see that there’s more smog, more traffic, the skyline is dominated more and more by very very large buildings…I have my objections personally,” Clyne said. “But at the same time, I know that those things are there as a bi-product of people enjoying and falling in love with a certain environment.

“I just hope,” he added, “that in the rush to enjoy that environment – recreationally or however you want to do it – we don’t lose sight of its fragility and its…you know, it needs to be taken care of and maintained. Or we’ll create a ghetto, you know? A million- dollar ghetto. Which happens. We gotta be careful.”

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>>Email the reporter at aklaw@zoniereport.com.

Soundbytes: Arizona’s war on drugs

PHOENIX — Recent activity along Arizona’s border with Mexico suggests that illegal drug trafficking is starting to reach the same problem status as illegal human trafficking.

Over the past decade, 80 percent of the nation’s methamphetamine production has been shifted to meth labs in Mexico. About 90 percent of the nation’s drugs come from the same country, and across the same border, says Elizabeth Kempshall, special agent in charge of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s Phoenix office.

Kempshall, 45, came to the Valley last fall from Houston. She has spent her entire 24-year career with the DEA as an undercover agent and administrator.

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INTERACTIVES

Elizabeth Kempshall, Arizona’s top DEA agent, speaks out on:

• Her drug-busting job

• Meth

• Steroids

• Online “pill mills”

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TZR recently caught up to Kempshall in her office and at a federal law enforcement shooting range near Interstate 17 and Carefree Highway north of Phoenix. [For the full story on Kempshall, her personal background, and what she intends to do about drugs in Arizona in the future, pick up a copy of the March 2008 issue of PHOENIX magazine.]

Her office has resources spread throughout the state, including Nogales, Yuma, Sierra Vista, Tucson, Phoenix and Flagstaff. She also has cooperation from local law enforcement agencies and state and federal prosecutors.

“Go on the offensive. Don’t go on the defense and wait for drugs to come across the border,” she says. “Because if I stay defensive, I’m going to miss drugs.”

Kempshall says the agency is rolling out a new public education campaign about steroids this spring in Phoenix, among other major U.S. cities. Two new tactical teams based in Tucson and Phoenix will try to infiltrate the illegal pharmaceutical industry on the Web.

But for meth, Kempshall says cooperation from the Mexican authorities is crucial. That’s because the majority of meth coming across Arizona’s border into the U.S. is being made and often shipped by the same groups behind drug and marijuana trafficking.

“Our fight against meth has been true law enforcement success, and for DEA in particular,” she says during a break from the firing line. “We’ve redirected what’s occuring in the meth business.”

Don’t be misled by the idea that enforcement has merely made meth an American import rather than ending the meth problem, Kempshall says. Now meth manufacturers have to make it across the border instead of making the drug in rural areas of the U.S. and shipping it throughout the region.

“If we can make it more difficult (to transport), then we can cost them more money,” Kempshall says. “And they’re in this for the money… . They have to go through that fatal funnel. I view that as a success story.”

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>>Email the editor at aklaw@zoniereport.com.