Phoenix News: Phoenix Police Fear Wave Of Kidnappings May Increase
Phoenix (AP) – A 13-year-old grabbed the streets and thrown into an SUV in Mexico kidnappers mistakenly believed it was the niece of the drug helped to steal 55 kilograms of marijuana.
A girl is about to their captors that they had abducted the wrong person, but to have their final on the head with a tape for them, and departed, and the families of the destitute.
In the wave of kidnappings, which are packaged in the Phoenix area, this case is an example of one of the most serious concerns of the police: the possibility that the kidnapping may last one meters and drug trafficking in human beings the goal of law-abiding people.
“We have enough problems with the bad-bad-man-in” kidnapping, Police Chief Jack Harris said. “If, if, as is apparent from the public, simply do not have that kind of staff that will have the opportunity to invest in such a case, at this level.”
368 reported kidnappings in 2008, Phoenix kidnapping capital of the country quickly. Kidnappings have become a persistent problem that a group of special police units to combat the abduction of the staff.
Authorities hope to avoid the mistakes of the Mexican police, kidnappings, smuggling ignored – a decision which may be relevant to ordinary people to raise the display of signs, even a modest prosperity.
The Government of Mexico, as a rule, ignoring the problem, “if there is a high-profile case – a man rich and famous man who was kidnapped,” said Jose Luis Velasco Cruz, Researcher, National Autonomous University of Mexico and an expert in drug policy, crime.
In recent years, many kidnappings in Phoenix, the kidnapping of rival drug dealers, employees or members of their families. The abductions have the opportunity to cover outstanding debts, theft of money from other traders or retaliation for the earlier kidnappings.
Immigrant smugglers are known in the case, the abduction of people, sometimes with customers as hostages to extort money from their families.
The kidnappers are generally looking for a ransom of $ 30,000 to $ 1 million demand and, sometimes, drugs as well.
Two victims were killed last year. Others were tortured by their legs iron clothes burned their weapons on the roof or fingers broken bricks. Some families of the victims screamed in pain and rescue calls.
In May 2008, the hijackers shot and killed an immigrant smuggler in the head, took his corpse in the street and put it in a fire in the garbage. The victim then received a call telling her girlfriend turn the news.
When doped kidnappings in Phoenix, the researchers were so overwhelmed that initially did not have much time to discuss issues in detail to understand the structure, i.e.
“We could not, because it was a kidnapping, in the center, and other kidnappings in the door,” said Lt. Lauri Brugett overseeing a special detachment of the kidnapping last summer.
If the victim of kidnapping, which took more than 60 officers to rescue the man, including the SWAT team.
If the innocent people who are at home or hijackers’ invaders in Phoenix, it is usually because the attacker has the job correctly.
In the case of 13-year-old kidnapped in March 2008, drug traffickers have, as the police requested the gun belt whereabouts of suspected drug dealers living in a nearby house, where he plays. She did not know him, but to the extent that it is in any case.
My brother and sister, aged between 16 and 17, tried to attack, but withdrew when the man referred to weapons. As brothers and sisters to see her sister was in a jeep and pursued.
It was hours later in a suburb of Phoenix after the kidnappers realized that they really stole the wrong girl.
But researchers say law-abiding people in Phoenix have nothing to fear. There is no evidence that traders of kidnapping innocent people, and police said business leaders do not want the level of control that lead to kidnapping.
However, police are concerned.
“You can not be so naive,” said Brugett. “You really have to look at the worst and try to find out how you can use the thing – and then realize their goal. And one of these goals is not as easy to get started on the real victims, victims real. ”
Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, the senior prosecutor in Phoenix, he was so worried that the kidnapping of his office, a three-member team of prosecutors specializing in kidnapping cases.
“If these criminals are willing to other people in a brutal way, in a sense, I see no reason why we are necessarily of the same crimes against civilians, if it determines it is in their interest to do so,” said Thomas.
Since June, police arrest 300 for kidnapping and home invasion and kidnapping, 35 teams eliminated. The authorities report that fewer members of the smugglers are headed.
Most of the kidnappers, police said, in the north and the violent Mexican state of Sinaloa, the main source of drugs, have been transferred through Arizona.
In its efforts to fight the police to deal with all those who played a role in the kidnapping, but small. For example, authorities arrested a man who paid a $ 600 credit on your computer to the kidnappers.
Authorities to ensure that victims have outstanding arrest warrants. If you are affected all the orders are available immediately after they are saved, as the police said today that the victims may be suspect tomorrow.
