Hard News Print: Drug Cartels Cross the border

Written by: Justin Blue

Mexican drug cartel violence may be coming over the border into the U.S.  A man was violently stabbed and beheaded in a suburban Phoenix apartment.  The victim Martin Alejandro Cota-Monroy’s body was found on October 10 in his apartment.  Only one man suspected in the killing has been arrested and a nationwide search is underway for three others.  Aguilar Morales, 22, Crisantos Moroyoqui, 36, and Jose David Castro Reyes, 25 are the three suspected in connection with the stabbing.

 Detectives are focusing on whether the man belonged to a Mexican drug cartel.  They suspect the killing was punishment for stealing drugs from the cartel.  They believe the brutal nature was intended to send a clear message to others within the cartel.

 “If it does turn out to be a drug cartel out of Mexico, typically that’s a message being sent,” said Chandler police Detective David Ramer.  “This person was chosen to be executed. It sends a message to other people: If you cross us, this is what happens.” 

In Mexican cartels territorial fights, decapitations are a regular part of the drug war.  Headless bodies hanging from bridges, severed heads sent to family members and government officials, and bags of up to 12 heads dropped off in high profile locations are some of the gruesome crimes associated with the drug cartels.  Over 28,000 people have been killed in Mexico in drug-related violence since December 2006, when President Felipe Calderon deployed soldiers to battle the cartels in their strongholds. 

“If the suspects in the Arizona case belong to a cartel, the crime could be the only known beheading in the U.S. carried out by a drug cartel”, said Tony Payan, a political science professor at the University of Texas at El Paso who has done a great deal of research about border violence.  The killing could also affect the immigration debate in Arizona.  Supporters of the state’s controversial immigration law often cite this type of violence as a big reason to buckle down on illegal immigrants.  The decapitation victim and the suspects were all illegal immigrants. 

The killing has really shaken up the residents in the neighborhood and apartment complex where Cota-Monroy was killed.  The small, run-down complex sits along a side street across from trailer homes in a neighborhood not far from brand-new strip malls with big-box stores in the suburb of Chandler.  No one is living inside the apartment that is the scene of the crime.  There’s beat up furniture, a bouquet of flowers and a candle on a dining room table, and the kitchen cabinets were left open, as if someone left in a big hurry.

“I’m terrified,” said Norma Alvarado, a 47-year-old housekeeper who lives two doors down from the apartment. “I’ve lived here for 20 years and I’ve never heard of that happening, and it was so close to us. … Maybe they’re copying what’s happening in Mexico.”

Alvarado, who lives alone with her three children, said she’s moving the family away from the complex out of fear that those responsible will return to the area looking for revenge.