San Diego To Assist Baja California In Training New Tourist Police Force

The San Diego Police Department will help train members of a new Mexican metropolitan tourist police force that will patrol from Tijuana to Ensenada.

The training agreement was formalized in a letter of intent signed Monday at San Diego City Hall by Mayor Jerry Sanders and mayors of the Baja California cities of Tijuana, Rosarito and Ensenada.

The new force will patrol primarily the 50-mile coastal tourist corridor from the U.S.-Mexico border to Ensenada. Exact size of the force and other details will be developed in the next few weeks prior to the start of training.

The goal is to have the force in operation by early next year. It will be designed primarily to deal with visitors from the U.S., Baja's traditional main market.

“We’ve always prided ourselves on our working relationship with our friends to the south,”

Sanders said, adding that the economies of the two regions are closely tied and both benefit from binational tourism.

“What’s good for Rosarito and Tijuana and Ensenada is good for San Diego,”

he said.

Sanders also commended the three Baja California mayors on their “very courageous” efforts in Mexico’s crackdown on organized crime elements involved in the international drug trade.

Rosarito Beach Mayor Hugo Torres said that having San Diego police, who are very experienced in dealing with international and U.S. tourists, assisting with training would be a great benefit.

“It will help us find out how American police work so we can provide better services,”

Torres said.

Torres said that visitors always have been safe in Baja but the new metropolitan tourist police would help make them feel more comfortable, secure and welcome.

Rosarito in 2008 started its own 30-member tourist police force, a special city department for attention to tourists, an ombudsman’s office to assist visitors and now issues bilingual traffic tickets that can be mailed in with fines from the U.S.

Rosarito’s Year-To-Date Crime Total Declines To Lowest Level In 5 Years

The number of crimes in this city from January to August of 2009 compared to the same eight months of 2008 declined by 24 percent, according to state government figures.

Rosarito had the largest decrease of any of northern Baja’s five cities --- which had an average decline of 10 percent --- and it was the only city where figures reached a five-year low.

“We are proud of the decrease,”

said Rosarito Beach Mayor Hugo Torres.

“We attribute it to improving our police force and expanding its size from about 140 officers to about 230, better equipment and expanded citizen watch efforts.”

“Police Chief Jorge Montero also has done an exceptional job,”

he said. Montero, a former Army captain, was brought in as chief in December of 2007.

Torres also cited strong support from the state attorney general’s office and arrests of high-level criminals by the Mexican military as reasons for the decline.

“We know there is much additional work to do, as there always is in fighting crime, but these are some very solid and encouraging numbers,”

added Torres, who took office in December of 2007.

The total number of crimes throughout the state declined from 92,060 to 83,155, with Rosarito accounting for 3 percent. Almost every major category declined with the exception of homicides, which went from 417 to 482 in Baja and 17 to 19 in Rosarito.

“The increase is primarily due to members of rival drug cartels killing each other as it becomes tougher for them to function because of the government’s crackdown on organized crime,”

Torres said.

“We hope to see a significant reduction in that category in the future. Currently it’s significantly higher than the U.S. average although lower than 2007 figures for cities including New Orleans and Baltimore, and about the same as Washington, D.C.”

In other categories in Rosarito, total crimes of violence went from 40 to 39 (-3 percent), robberies and burglaries (combined) from 1,657 to 1,178 (-29 percent), vehicle thefts from 768 to 430 (-44 percent) and home burglaries from 362 to 364 (+1 percent).